


The Holiday

by sunsetmog



Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Christmas, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fanmix available, Holidays, Inspired by a Movie, M/M, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:15:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 73,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/pseuds/sunsetmog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You watched that stupid movie. I'm blaming you."</p><p>Or: Brendon and Spencer vacation in Wales at Christmas.</p><p>Inspired by The Holiday. Sort of. Um.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fic that was supposed to be my bandomstuffsit fic, but it got way too close to the deadline and there was _so much_ left to write, and so much to edit in this one that I had to put it to one side and write something else instead.
> 
> In the meantime, Octette helped me out with this by doing a most wonderful beta for me. Any remaining mistakes are down to me.
> 
> Pretty much all of the places in this fic (both in this part and throughout) are real, but some of them are not where I say they are. Others are exactly where they say they are, down to the road numbers. I haven't posted a fic as a partwork in years, and they say a change is as good as a cure, so here goes.

**Prologue: Part One**

"Oh my fucking god," Brendon swore, trying to unfold a map and not block the whole of the windshield while Spencer was going full speed on the freeway. "Where the fuck are we even going?"

"Wales," Spencer said grimly. He was exhausted, and not only was he going seventy miles an hour on the M4 going west - with a destination of the middle of fucking nowhere - he was sitting on the wrong side of the fucking car, and driving on the wrong side of the road as well.

It was really, really not his fault that he'd assumed that booking a car through the "car hire" company their airline had recommended would mean that they had a driver to get them the eight hours from London Heathrow to their cottage on the Welsh coast. It was only when they'd got to the front desk of the hire company, and spoken with a girl who'd smiled too brightly and talked with an accent that Spencer barely understood, that he realized that what he'd actually paid for was a rental. Which meant that Spencer, who was exhausted after an eleven-hour flight, two failed Xanax, a ninety-minute wait at passport control, and not anywhere near enough sleep, had to drive eight hours in winter in a foreign country—or, worse still, let Brendon do it instead. Brendon was his best friend, but even Spencer didn't want to get in a car with him after a handful of Xanax and not enough sleep.

"I can't understand their maps," Brendon said. "What—where are we? Why aren't any of their roads straight? Why can't we go the fuck to sleep? Whose stupid fucking idea was this anyway?"

"Yours," Spencer said, grimly, gripping the wheel too tight for comfort. It was not his fault that he hadn't driven anything that wasn't an automatic in the past two years, and it was not his fault that they were here. The fact that they were here was _all_ Brendon's fault. "You watched that stupid movie. I'm blaming you."

"I thought we talked about hiding the credit cards away when we were drunk." Brendon made a face, and scrunched the map up even more. "What road are we on? This map could be of a different country. Anyway, you were the one who said _let's Google_. This is more your fault than mine."

"You were the one who thought learning credit card details off by heart would be _fun_ ," Spencer told him. He really needed some fucking sleep, and he needed it _soon_. Their flight had been delayed, there had been at least two kids on that flight who'd taken it upon themselves to scream themselves hoarse for the whole journey, and they were only here because Brendon had lost the TV remote long enough for them to see the beginning of a really shitty movie about Cameron Diaz going to an English cottage for Christmas. _And_ they'd left the laptop close enough for them to hit up Google for vacations when they'd decided that what they really needed was a break away from writing their album. Or not writing, whatever.

"Remember that time we bought pizza and beer and gummy worms over the phone and we didn't need to get up and go find our wallets? Because we knew our card details?" Brendon rolled his eyes, turning the map the other way up, then back again in frustration. "That was fun."

"If you hadn't lost the remote," Spencer went on darkly, ignoring the fact that that night they'd ordered all that food over the phone _had_ been fun. Being stoned and getting the munchies was so much better when the munchies came to you. Normally he loved all the crazy shit he and Brendon got up to, but right now he was too tired to remember how good any of that felt. "Anyway, you were the one who thought pretending to be Cameron Diaz and coming over here for _snow_ would be fun. _The_ fucking _Holiday_ , what the fuck."

"There's no fucking snow," Brendon said. He scrunched the map up into as small a ball as he could manage, and then when that didn't work, he stuffed it over the back of his seat. "There's just rain." He fumbled with the stereo. It blared out, "It's the most wonderful time of the year"at ear-splitting volume, and Brendon stabbed at it with his finger. "Fuck."

Spencer sighed. "Let's pull over. We need coffee." _And I need to be somewhere that isn't trapped in a small space with you_ , although he didn't add that last part. He could be a bad-tempered traveler when he was tired, he knew that, and this trip was being made a hundred times worse by _not fucking ending_. It wasn't that he was pissed at Brendon exactly, but this had felt like the longest year ever, and even now, after five months of officially being a duo, there was still a gap where their friends used to be. He and Brendon were still figuring out how to make everything work now it was just the two of them, and every learning curve had its difficult patches. Getting their album written was theirs. Traveling without Ryan to off-set the boredom and the exhaustion was Spencer's. It was weird that Spencer missed him the most when they were on the road. Maybe he'd email him while they were here, see how he was doing. They didn't talk all that much anymore.

He spotted what had to be the universal sign for a restroom on a sign by the side of the road, and pulled across three lanes of traffic to make the exit. The blare of horns followed him down the exit ramp.

Brendon slumped in his seat. "This vacation fucking sucks," he said miserably. "It's nothing like _The Holiday_."

Spencer gripped the wheel a little tighter, and parked terribly in the first available parking space. He had no idea what had come over the two of them, only that they had been painfully aware that they had half an album that was totally stalled, the record company kept calling them up, they had two recently failed relationships between them, and then they'd drunk the best part of two bottles of rum, run out of Coke, and discovered a holiday marathon on the TV. The next thing he'd known, they were talking about how great it would be to get away from everything for a while, and after that, booking a last minute vacation while the movie still played seemed really fucking easy.

"Come on," he said, trying to find his wallet. He blinked. "Fuck," he said. "Did you get your money changed?"

Brendon leaned forward and rested his forehead on the dash. "Maybe we can beg for coffee."

"You think our cards work in the ATM now?" he said. Last time they'd been here, the machine had eaten Zack's card. Or maybe that had been in France. Or Germany. Or Australia. Spencer was very, very tired. "Or maybe we can just get our coffees on our credit cards."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Brendon said. "We are never getting drunk again. We are never watching shitty holiday movies again. We are never, ever Googling anything ever again in our whole entire lives."

"You think we can just nap in the parking lot for a while?" Spencer said. The turnaround for this vacation had been _hours_. They'd had fifteen hours between booking and getting to the airport, and most of that had been taken up with passing out on the couch and sleeping off the best part of two bottles of rum. Packing had decidedly taken a back seat to their hangovers. Both of those things had taken a back seat to writing more of their album. They'd had so many ideas and so many thoughts but none of them had translated into anything more than a single song, and none of it added up to anything like a stab at a cohesive album. Neither of them really had a clue what they were doing and what their roles were, and with every day it was getting harder.

"Please," Brendon said, suddenly looking just as tired as Spencer felt. "Fuck, yes. Let's just sleep here, just for a while."

Spencer didn't even care that they were in the middle of a parking lot and they had a deadline—the woman with the keys to the cottage was only going to be in the office until five thirty, and Wales was still a long way in _some_ direction—he suddenly knew that if he didn't fall asleep right the fuck now, he was going to drive the car off the road. "Fine," he said, and without asking to see if Brendon minded, he climbed into the back seat and swept all their already-accumulated junk onto the floor. Driver always got first choice at where to pass out, that was the _rule_. He'd apologize when he wasn't so tired he felt like dying.

He pulled his coat over him, and shut his eyes.

When he woke up again, it was to the sound of Brendon snoring like a freight train, and the clock reading two hours later than it had the last time he'd looked. His neck hurt and his legs were cramping and they were still a million miles away from this cottage somewhere on the Welsh coast, which was supposed to be a last minute, pre-holidays, getting-away-from-it-all vacation.

( _We can write in Wales just as much as we can here,_ Brendon had said, carefully not pointing out that they weren't exactly managing to do much writing in LA. It turned out that losing the primary lyricist two albums in might have been for the best for them musically, but it didn't exactly leave them with a clear focus, or even that much practice at writing songs by themselves. At least Ryan and Jon knew the kinds of songs that they wanted to write. Spencer wouldn't change the way things had turned out, but he couldn't help wishing they'd get a handle on where they were going a little quicker.

 _We need to get away, like Cameron Diaz. Get some perspective_ , Brendon had added.

 _New Perspective,_ Spencer had said, and snorted. Brendon had snorted too, but they'd been drunk and looking up places on the internet by that point, so it didn't really matter that what they were doing was totally fucking stupid.)

Spencer shook Brendon's shoulder. "Come on," he said. "Wake up. We'll go get some coffee and get on the road again. We need to be there by dinner."

"Nrgh," Brendon said, eloquently, wiping drool off his chin with his fist. "Why is this country so fucking cold?"

"Punishment," Spencer said grimly, already climbing back through to the front seat. "It's the powers that be telling us we should never drink rum again."

"Someone take away the fucking credit cards," Brendon said, sleepily, already rooting through his backpack on the floor. "Got my wallet," he said. "Let's go raid this joint."

Two coffees each and a pack of M&M's helped wake Spencer up, and it was only once they got into Wales and the roads started getting smaller and windier that he realized they really were going to the middle of fucking nowhere. "Your turn to drive," he said, since it was high time Brendon took his share of the driving, and Spencer was exhausted and jealous of the way Brendon kept looking like he was napping in the passenger seat.

"Awesome," Brendon said cheerfully, which was another reason Spencer had to resent him right now. He rolled his shoulders to get rid of the cramp, and pulled over so that Brendon could take his seat.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, so long as Brendon occasionally veering over to the more familiar side of the road didn't count as being eventful, but when the clock on the dash started to tick past five pm, Spencer started to get worried. "She's going to have gone, Brendon, and then we'll be stuck sleeping in our car overnight."

"We won't," Brendon said, easily. He changed gear with only a little wrenching noise. It was _not_ their fault they hadn't driven stick in a while. "We'll get there."

"I don't even know where there _is_ ," Spencer complained, trying to follow their route on the hopelessly crumpled ordinance survey map. "I think we're on a yellow road. What does that even mean? Fuck, next time you see a phone booth, pull over. We'll call and say we're almost there." He'd spent twenty minutes after they'd swapped seats hopelessly stabbing at his phone with sleepy fingers, each time hoping that he'd get it to work. It didn't.

"With what?" Brendon asked, with surprising reason. They still didn't have any cash between them, and Spencer was almost one hundred percent sure that phone booths didn't take cards, and even if they did, he was willing to bet they wouldn't take American cards. Stupid fucking American cards, he thought, angrily. Stupid fucking British machines, demanding that every card have a stupid chip in it. His card would only work if somebody swiped it, which had always made everything even more complicated whenever they came over on tour.

Seriously, this was the stupidest idea either of them had ever had.

"Fuck, just drive faster," Spencer said. "Why aren't we on the A40? Shouldn't we be on the A40?"

"We've come off that," Brendon said. "I think we're on the A487."

"Glad you're paying attention," Spencer said gruffly. He fumbled in his wallet for the print out from the booking website; at least now they should be able to start following the local directions that had come with the booking. "Hang on, there, pull in. There's the store, look."

The store, lit up like a fucking parade, was half real estate, half Coastal Cottages Holiday Bookings, and half tourist information. It was also covered in fucking Christmas lights, and nestled in between a small grocery store and a store whose sign said Enoch's, and under that, _pysgod a sglodion._ He couldn't even make a guess at what the fuck that meant. Spencer's eyes hurt. Seriously, if he didn't get some actual sleep soon he was going to go nuclear and blow stuff up. He was so tired he felt like he was dying.

"I'll go in and get the keys," Spencer said. "I'm pretty sure we're not meant to park here, so keep the engine running."

Brendon tapped his fingers against the wheel. "Got it, boss," he said, and just for a second he looked just as exhausted as Spencer was, but then he perked up. "Almost there, Spence."

"Yeah," Spencer said, too tired even to resent Brendon for being perky when he was having trouble standing up and walking. He grabbed his jacket from off the back seat and crossed the road. He definitely needed to buy a better coat if they were going to be here almost two weeks; the wind whistled right through this one and out the other side again, leaving him like an icicle in the middle. "Hi," he said, pushing open the door to the little store. An annoying Christmas bell jangled as the door opened. "I'm Spencer Smith? I have a booking with you -"

"Spencer Smith!" There were two women in the little store, both of them wearing ridiculous knitted sweaters and dunking cookies in cups of tea. One of them, seated behind a desk that said _Anna Macnamara, Coastal Lets_ on a little sign perched in between a multitude of family photographs and a goldfish in a bowl, stood up and held her hand out, brushing away the crumbs against her skirt as she did so. "I'm Anna Macnamara. Congratulations!"

Spencer blinked. _Okay_ , he thought. "Um, thanks?" he said. "I booked a cottage online—"

"We spoke very briefly on the phone," Anna said, still shaking his hand. Spencer remembered that, if a little drunkenly. "To confirm your booking."

"Yes," Spencer said again. He felt vaguely confused.

"Well, it's a lovely little cottage, new to us this year. The owners live right down the road, so any problems, they've said just nip down and give them a knock. They'll come up and show you all the little idiosyncrasies you might expect from a cottage of this age - where to duck so you won't bang your head, the little trick with the toilet door, that kind of thing." She leaned in conspiratorially. "I must say, they were ever so excited when they saw your special request on the booking form. They've never done it before! So they've gone all out for you. And on top of the Christmas decorations you requested. The place looks wonderful."

"Um," Spencer said, since he was so tired his brain felt muffled. "That's great," he settled for, after a moment.

"They've really made the place nice," she went on, settling herself down on her chair again, and waving Spencer down into the empty seat on the other side of the desk. The other woman watched him with interest from behind the cash register, and offered him a cookie. He took one, because cookies were nice and he was a little confused. "Just a few bits of paperwork to get out of the way first, and then you can follow me in your car down to the cottage. I'm off in a minute anyway, and we'll knock up Dave and Mary on the way past, let them know you're here. They'll want to see your reaction, anyway. They spent ages putting the decs and everything up."

"Right," Spencer said, vaguely considering what Anna meant by _knock up_ , and hoping it meant something different than what it meant back home. "Yes." He took another cookie as the printer creaked into action, and then Anna handed him the first batch of pages.

"Here's your booking, and your requests, and proof of your payment; just sign there. And here are the conditions of use of the cottage - no smoking being the main one, but take a look through. Because of all the candles, there's an extra bit here about not leaving them unattended. Here's a list of contact numbers—for us and for emergencies—and I'm just printing you off some updated information about the area. Gloria's put you together a Welcome Pack, too, full of things for you and your husband to do on your honeymoon." She winked at him. "If you want to leave the cottage, that is!"

Spencer blinked, and looked down at the printed checklist in his lap. In clear, black letters it said _honeymoon_ and next to that, a box checked _yes_.

 _Oh_ , he thought, and dimly remembered a checklist form that he'd mostly ignored and clicked at randomly. Yes, we want internet; no, we don't need a place that caters to animals; yes, we want Christmas decorations. And, apparently, yes, we are on a honeymoon and the honeymoon package sounded perfect.

Ah.

Okay.

 

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So, don't kill me," Spencer said, "but I made a mistake on the booking form and they think this is our honeymoon. That we're on. Together."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For ohohstarryeyed. ♥

~*~

"So, don't kill me," Spencer said, as they pulled in behind Anna's car on a tiny, tiny country lane in the pitch fucking black, "but I made a mistake on the booking form and they think this is our honeymoon. That we're on. Together."

Brendon looked at him incredulously. "Say that again," he said, after a moment. The engine powered down slowly, leaving only silence, and the absolute darkness outside.

"Dave and Mary have made a special effort, apparently," Spencer plowed on, trying not to look at the incredulous amazement on Brendon's face. "They've worked really hard. So, I figure, we go in, pretend to be really happy that they've laid on a honeymoon for us, and after they've gone, we go back to not being, you know. On our honeymoon."

"Holy shit," Brendon said, with a snort. "That's amazing. So we're married? Or supposed to be?"

"I guess?" Spencer said, shrugging his shoulders. "If we're on our honeymoon, I mean, it stands to reason, right?"

"This is amazing," Brendon said again. "Wait until we tell Dallon, he'll die. And Pete. He'll be pissed he missed the wedding."

Spencer put his head in his hands. "Sorry," he said, "but this is all your fault. If you hadn't learnt our stupid card details off by heart, we would never have booked this stupid vacation."

"Shut up and enjoy it," Brendon said. "Can't have you being grumpy ruining our honeymoon. What would your mom say?"

"Shut up," Spencer said, and he awkwardly stumbled out of the car and onto the road, stretching to get rid of some of the aches from being cramped in a seat for the best part of a day. "This is the rum's fault. Who let us have rum?"

"We haven't met," Anna said, coming over and taking Brendon by the hand. The only electric light was the light from the open car door, but there was a faint silvery light from the quarter-moon, now that Spencer was getting used to the dark. "Anna Macnamara. And I hear from your lovely young man here that congratulations are in order!"

"Yes, they are," Brendon said, with a wide, shit-eating grin. "My lovely young man is completely right."

 _Oh god_ , Spencer thought. Brendon was going to lord this over him forever.

"Now, come on inside, bring your bags, that's right." She waited while Brendon popped the trunk, and then held her arms out. "Now, load me up." She looked in the trunk, and dropped her hands again. "You didn't bring very much."

"Very last minute," Spencer said. "We just threw some stuff in a couple of cases."

"Ah, yes." She nodded. "An elopement. Very romantic. You'll have to tell us all the gory details. We're all wildly excited. We've never had any gay marrieds before. I can call you gay marrieds, right?"

"Um," Spencer said.

"Come along," she said. "Dave and Mary are meeting us inside, they've got everything set up for you."

As they carefully navigated the path up to the front door of a small, grey cottage with a sloping roof, Spencer tugged on Brendon's sleeve with his free hand. "Brendon -"

"Shush," Brendon said, with a wicked grin. He was clearly loving this. "We're the only gay marrieds they've had, Spencer. They need us to give them all the details of our romantic elopement."

"I hate you," Spencer muttered, tripping over something he couldn't even see and feeling the handle of his suitcase wrench free. "I really hate you."

"Not as much as I love you, sweetheart," Brendon said, loud enough for Anna to hear. Anna was already at the front door, shaking hands enthusiastically with a man and woman who looked to be in their fifties, and were welcoming Brendon and Spencer with open arms.

Spencer allowed himself to be hugged by the woman - Mary, he assumed - and to have his hand shaken by Dave.

"I've got a cousin who's gay," Dave was telling them, still pumping Spencer's hand. His accent was lilting, Welsh and strong. "He never got married, though."

"Well, he can't, can he?" Mary put in, tucking her arm through Brendon's. "Civil partnerships, that's what he could get."

"Um," Spencer managed, because he was tired, and his eyes ached, and Dave had one hell of a tight handshake. His cheeks felt red. "It's great to meet you, but we've had a really long day, and we've traveled a long way-"

"Oh, of course," Mary said. "Come on in, come on. We've got it all laid out for you, even put a welcome feast in the fridge. And bacon and eggs for the morning, fresh this morning from Dafydd, down the way." She paused. "Bacon's from the Co-op, but you can't have everything."

Spencer ducked his head to avoid smacking his head on the lintel, and followed Anna and Brendon and Mary and Dave inside. They were in a hallway, small and cramped and with a low ceiling. Stairs went up, and there was a door to the left, one to the right, and one straight ahead.

"That's the way out the back," Dave said, pointing to the door opposite. "Key's on the fob, got a big B on it, it has. That way's the kitchen, and in here -" He pushed open the door to their left. "- in here is the living room."

It was—it was something else. A large Christmas tree mostly obscured the window, but it was dragged down low with all the tinsel and lights and decorations on it. An angel perched a little wonkily on top. Candles were laid out all along the mantel, in between an odd, wooden set of nativity figurines, painted strange colors and kneeling before a crib made out of popsicle sticks. A congratulations banner hung from the wall above the fireplace, where a fire crackled merrily behind an old, cast-iron fire guard. There were garlands across the wall, ribbons around the picture frames, and a welcome basket on the coffee table, and it was old-fashioned and pretty and _tiny_. With the five of them standing in the room, they were all practically elbow to elbow.

"This is great," Brendon said, because clearly he was doing better than Spencer was. He could remember how to use words, a skill Spencer thought he might have lost hours ago. "It's really great. We really appreciate it." He snuck a glance at Spencer, and winked. "My hubby and I -"

That was it, Spencer was going to kill him.

"- we can't thank you enough for all the trouble you've gone to."

Mary and Dave looked pink-cheeked and appreciative. Spencer was reminded, yet again, that Brendon had a special super-power when it came to winning over people. He would try harder himself, but he was on the brink of falling asleep right where he stood.

"We're really grateful," Spencer told them, eyes fixed on the heart-shaped red blanket draped over the couch. "But -"

"You should show us the kitchen and upstairs," Brendon said. "I know I'm dying to see it, and I'm sure Spencer is too, isn't that right, honeybun?"

Spencer kicked him in the ankle. "I'm sorry," he said firmly, ignoring Brendon's shit-eating grin. "You've all been so kind, but we haven't been to bed in over twenty four hours, and we're flagging."

"Of course," Anna said smoothly. "The keys are here, the welcome pack is there, there are emergency numbers in the back, and the check-out details are all written here on the inside back cover. Feel free to give me a ring or pop in if you need anything; Dave and Mary are just down the lane, and I know they'll want to help."

"We want you two to have the best honeymoon ever," Mary told them, beaming. "Pop down anytime, we'll tell you how to walk down to the beach and we can recommend some good places for you to eat and -"

Spencer smiled weakly. "Thanks," he said, cutting her off.

"We will take you up on that," Brendon said sunnily, and slid his arm around Spencer's waist. "Once Mr. Grumpy-boots has had some sleep."

It was impossible for Spencer to hate him any more than he did right now, and he couldn't even shrug away Brendon's arm until they'd stood at the front door and waved off Anna in her car, and Mary and Dave back down the road.

"So," Brendon said, brightly. "How would you like to spend our first night together as married men, Mr. Urie-Smith?"

"Fuck you," Spencer said, rolling his eyes. "I'm going to bed."

"I'm going to get a drink," Brendon said. "You sure you don't want anything?" Spencer wasn't sure where Brendon had got his second wind from, but he was bright-eyed and laughing, something Spencer couldn't have managed even if someone had paid him.

"I need to sleep," he said, almost too tired to negotiate the stairs. "I'll see you in the morning."

It was only when he got to the top of the stairs and into the bedroom that he realized there was only one bed. He shouldn't have expected any different, bearing in mind the honeymoon misunderstanding, but there was a difference between abstractly realizing that the honeymoon package had been laid out for them, and knowing that there was only one place in the cottage where he and Brendon could sleep. Together.

The room was cold. The bed was piled high with flower print covers, and topped off with a large knitted blanket, and there were heartshaped chocolates and rose petals all over the pillows.

"Fuck it," Spencer said succinctly, and, kicking off his shoes, he stumbled face first into bed, not even bothering to take off his clothes.

~*~


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That's your dick," Spencer mumbled, because Brendon's dick was pressed up against Spencer's thigh.

~*~

He woke up to Brendon plastering himself to Spencer's side.

"That's your dick," Spencer mumbled, because Brendon's dick was pressed up against Spencer's thigh.

"Shut up, it's fucking freezing," Brendon said. "We're sharing body heat so we don't die of cold. Go back to sleep."

"Your dick," Spencer said, sleepily, but he was asleep again before he could formulate his thoughts.

When he woke up again, it was light outside, and Brendon was wrapped around him, unconcernedly drooling onto Spencer's shoulder. It was toasty warm inside the nest of blankets, but it was freezing outside of them. Spencer was relatively sure that his nose was about to drop off. Someone - Brendon - had also piled up their coats and sweaters on top of the covers, to make an extra blanket, and Spencer's heart sank at the idea of getting out of bed and facing the cold.

At least now that he was awake, he could take a better look at their surroundings; last night he hadn't even been able to make out what the cottage looked like in the darkness. Not that it was exactly light outside; unlike LA, Wales was turning out to be mostly gray and overcast. He wasn't sure that he'd seen the sun at any point since they'd come down through the clouds at Heathrow yesterday morning.

On cue, his stomach rumbled, and he realized that he hadn't eaten properly since—well. They'd had M&Ms at that truck stop, and before that they'd had some kind of breakfast at the airport, and before that, the endlessly bad airplane food. He hoped there was something in that welcome basket that they could eat - the cottage was self-catered, and they hadn't brought anything with them. He braved the cold outside of the nest of blankets, taking care to ensure Brendon was still all wrapped up warm—although a part of Spencer thought that if Spencer was awake then Brendon should definitely be awake too - and shivering, Spencer reached for one of the hoodies Brendon was using as a blanket for another layer. This place was freezing.

The kitchen was equally cold, but there was an electric kettle and a French press and - thank fuck - a bag of coffee in the welcome basket on the kitchen table. He filled the kettle from the faucet, putting it back on its stand and pressing the on switch as he took a look around. The kitchen was small, and a little cramped, but very clean and tidy; the tiled floor was cold beneath his socked feet, so he took refuge on the rug in front of the stove. The wallpaper was floral and a little faded, but everything was very neat, and there was a little Christmas tree and tiny wooden presents arranged on the counter. When he opened the cupboard doors, there were tidy piles of matching crockery, and matching mugs hung from hooks above the counter. The fridge was empty, apart from a bottle of champagne, a paper bag with smoked salmon in it, a pack of bacon, some Lurpack butter and a carton of eggs. There wasn't anything he could just put his face in right this second, unless he wanted the smoked salmon.

He decided against the smoked salmon, and went through the welcome basket instead, which was on the kitchen table in front of the window. There was a loaf of brown bread, wrapped in a paper bag, and a box of artisan chocolates in a decadently gift-wrapped box. He was breaking into the box and biting into one even before he'd read the label. The box - underneath all the wrapping - was white with an odd, twisting, Celtic design on the lid. Something about the design captured his attention, and he spent a moment turning it around to get a better look before he realized that what he was eating might be the best chocolate he had ever had in his whole entire life. After staring mindlessly at the pictures of chocolates on the label for a moment, he decided that what he was eating was a Blue Mountain Coffee one, and when Brendon stumbled sleepily into the kitchen, Spencer handed the other half of the chocolate over.

"Eat this," he demanded. "Seriously, is that not the greatest thing you've ever eaten in your life?" Spencer didn't even normally _like_ coffee-flavored chocolate. He was making an exception for this one, which was a lot like an actual orgasm taking place in his mouth.

There was dried drool on Brendon's chin, and he was shivering inside Spencer's coat, but his eyes widened at the first taste of the chocolate. "Oh god," he moaned, wiping the dried drool away with the back of his hand. "What _is_ that?"

Spencer showed him the label, and put the way his heart was beating a little faster down to the really good chocolate. "Blue Mountain Coffee," he said. "I wonder if they're made around here? We should get boxes for everybody for Christmas."

"Great idea," Brendon said. "And extra ones for us. What else is in the box?" he asked, peering over Spencer's arm to see the rest of the chocolate selection. "There's only one of each," he complained.

"We'll have to share," Spencer said, because if the rest of the chocolates were anything like that one, then this would be the best chocolate of his life. He could feel the way Brendon was pressed up against his back, warm and sleepy. "Do you want coffee?"

"Stupid question," Brendon said, still reading the pamphlet that came with the chocolates. "They _are_ made around here," he said. "There's a line on the back about gifts for Christmas, and it says Pembrokeshire, look. That's where we are, right?"

Spencer wasn't entirely sure where they were, or what time zone they were in, or what they were doing here, but at least Pembrokeshire sounded right. "Yeah," he said. "We can look at the map later." He tore at the bag of coffee with his teeth, and only got some of it all over the counter top. He couldn't be bothered trying to find a spoon, so he tipped grounds into the coffee press and poured hot water over them.

"There's an Orange Marmalade Truffle," Brendon said. "Find a knife and we'll cut it in half."

"Just bite half off," Spencer said, because he couldn't be bothered to look for a knife.

"What if I take more than half?" Brendon asked.

"Then I'll kill you in your sleep."

"Huh," Brendon said, and took a bite, holding it out for Spencer to take the rest of.

Spencer ate it off his fingers. "Jesus Christ, this is amazing."

They were startled out of their skins by someone knocking on the kitchen window. "Fuck," Spencer said, way too loudly, because it was Mary and Dave again, grinning at them and waving. He swallowed the truffle too quickly, and glowered at them, but Brendon was already going for the front door.

"Hi," Brendon said, sounding far too wide awake for someone who had just stumbled out of bed moments earlier. "Come in!"

"Fuck _off_ ," Spencer muttered under his breath, but he at least managed half a smile when Dave and Mary came into the kitchen, already unzipping their thick jackets. "Hi."

"Hello," Mary said. "My, it's cold in here. We realized we hadn't shown you to how to work the heaters last night, so we thought we'd pop in and just do that. I see you're enjoying the chocolates."

"Yes," Spencer said pointedly. He was so cold he was about to start hugging the French press to him, like his own personal heat pad.

"I remember when we first got married," Mary went on, bustling over to the cupboard in the corner and pulling it open to reveal a boiler. "We were all over each other, although you'd never think to look at Dave now—"

"Careful," Dave said, rolling his eyes at Spencer in a brothers-in-arms camaraderie kind of a way. Spencer didn't feel any camaraderie with anyone, because his coffee was still in the pot and not inside him, and because _he wasn't actually married_.

"Here's the timer here," Mary said, pointing at the timer. It looked just the same as any of the boilers Spencer had ever poked or prodded at in his time, but he nodded anyway, and let Mary set it to come on twice a day. "Here's the boost button, and here's where you can switch it on all the time, look. You'll soon get hot doing that, and when you've got the fire going in the living room, and you're all curled up cosy-like, you won't be thinking about switching the boiler on, I'm sure." She laughed.

Spencer blinked a bit and thought sadly about how quickly he'd eaten that Marmalade Truffle, and most definitely not about curling up on the couch next to Brendon in front of the fire.

Dave cleared his throat. "We don't want to keep you," he said. "Heater in the bedroom's got a thermostat, just switch it up if you get cold."

"Excellent," Brendon said. "Thank you." He paused. "We need to go find a grocery store today, can you tell us the nearest one? And how about some place we can go and get the kind of view we can take pictures of and then email all of our friends?"

"Ah, well, that I can help with." Dave rooted in the welcome basket for the map of the area, and then spread it out all over the kitchen table. Mary made herself at home, shifting the welcome basket out of the way so that both she and Brendon could get up close and personal with the map. "Here's the next town, and there's a supermarket here—" He pointed. "—and here. Or if you go into Newport, there's a Spar on the high street, which is just your local shop. Enough to keep you going, at least. There's a butcher's and a baker's and a place that sells cheese, too. Or if you want to go inland, there's one of those big Morrisons in Haverfordwest." He cleared his throat again, and then pointed his finger at the map. "You want to go here for your pictures. If the weather's good, you can walk up the headland and take pictures both ways up and down the coast; if it isn't overcast, then you'll get some great shots. Plus there's a beach at the bottom here, and you can park your car there and walk up to the head, or you can take the path here and cut across the middle to get to the other beach, at the other side of the headland. Cwm yr Eglwys. There's a fish and chip restaurant at Pwllgwaelod; you could eat in or get some chips to take away. Taste of Wales, fish and chips."

"Awesome," Brendon said enthusiastically. "Sounds great."

"It does," Spencer agreed, even though it didn't. Well, it sort of did. Mostly he just wanted his cup of coffee and to spend more than five seconds in their cottage without being either set upon by enthusiastic neighbors or asleep in bed. With Brendon. He still hadn't quite gotten over that. "Thanks."

"Anytime," Mary said. "We'll be off now, leave you to your breakfast. Come down and give us a knock if you need anything, we're the one on the corner with the dragon gate."

"Thanks," Spencer said again, unashamedly shuffling them towards the door.

"Thank you!" Brendon yelled after them, as Spencer was shutting the front door, and they turned back and waved at them both. Brendon rested his cheek against Spencer's shoulder for a moment, until Spencer pushed him away and rolled his eyes.

"Coffee?" Spencer said, going back into the kitchen. It was already beginning to feel a little warmer; the pipes were clanking noisily into action all around them.

"Yes," Brendon said, sounding very grateful. He held his hands out piteously, waiting for his mug. "Please."

They had a breakfast of fresh bread and smoked salmon and chocolates, which felt decadent, and sort of but not really romantic. It was weird, because they were eating what should have been a romantic honeymoon breakfast for two, but it was just them, sitting around the table in the kitchen of their Welsh cottage. They had eaten decadent meals together before; breakfasts in South Africa, cocktails outside by the pool, in Paris, in hotels across the world in the middle of the night. Spencer didn't know why this one felt different.

They spent most of the time not really talking, just helping themselves to torn-off chunks of bread—finding the breadknife had seemed too much like hard work—and staring out of the window into their wet, muddy front garden, and over the road to the fields that sloped down and down until they disappeared into the cliffs, and then the dark blue line of the horizon that was the Irish sea. It was beautiful in a haggard, cold, gray kind of way, and Spencer found himself suddenly excited, and overwhelmed, and desperate to be out there, seeing all there was to see.

They took turns in the shower, Spencer taking the time while Brendon was in the bathroom to unpack his stuff into the nightstand and the closet. There was pale pink, floral scented paper in each of the drawers, and Spencer grimaced, thinking what his clothes were going to smell of when he took them out to wear them, but whatever. Everything about the cottage was small and cramped and neat and floral and clean; Spencer secretly wanted to do what his mother would have done and go through every drawer and shelf in the place, just to see what else there was. He decided against it until after they'd been out, maybe when the jetlag kicked back in. He had no idea what time it was back home; he had a rule never to check home-time when they first got overseas because it screwed with his body clock less not to know. Instead, he dumped his toiletries on the dresser by the window, and fumbled back the net curtains to get a better look at the yard out back, and the way the hill set off from right outside their wall, climbing up and up and up until Spencer couldn't see the top for the trees.

"Wow," he said, as Brendon came out of the shower, and Spencer thought he saw something moving in the trees. A fox darted out over the grass of the hillside before jumping over the wall of the cottage down the road and disappearing from view. "I just saw a fox."

"Thought they were nocturnal," Brendon said, dropping his towel on the floor in favor of tugging open his case and rooting around through all of his stuff looking for something to wear. Brendon's case would stay there the whole two weeks they had the cottage, belongings littering the floor and the bathroom and the rest of the cottage. When it came time to leave, Brendon would just stuff all of his stuff back in his case and be ready to leave in half the time it would take Spencer to gather up his belongings. "I guess it's gray enough out there for him to think it's still night."

Spencer rolled his eyes at the sight of Brendon's dick. "You left the shampoo and stuff in there, right?" he said, since they'd really only brought one set of toiletries, and that had just been stuff that they'd picked up in the airport before they got on the plane. By that point, they'd both been too tired to care what they were buying, so Spencer suspected they were either going to try to get washed in something that was decidedly not for use in the bathroom, or accidentally have to use the most expensive shower gel in the world.

They had, in actual fact, bought Ralph Lauren shower gel. He squeezed way too much out onto his palm, losing himself under the spray for a while.

They got lost on the way to the grocery store, unable to remember where Dave had pointed to it on the map, and when they'd finally figured out that they were going in the right direction for the town, they'd been so terrified by the single-track right-angled bends, surrounded on all sides by houses built right onto the roadside with not even any room for a _sidewalk,_ that they gave in and decided that the Welsh were crazy people.

In the end, they found the store almost by accident, and then they wandered up and down the aisles with an air of bemusement as they tried to figure out what they wanted to eat. They bought far too much cereal, since Brendon loved cereal and would always buy extra cereal instead of extra food if he was faced with the decision. They bought chocolate spread and a loaf of bread that didn't look as nice as the one they'd had back home for breakfast. Once they'd stuffed a ton of junk food and a couple of frozen pizzas into the cart, and had two packs of Welsh cakes thrust upon them by the girl at the bakery who'd been overawed by their accents, they were just left with the alcohol aisle. They picked out a ton of Coke, some kind of weird soda that was green and Spencer wanted to try, way too much beer, chips, and a bottle of whisky, and then they were finally ready to go find a cash register.

It cost them a stupid amount of money, but luckily Spencer was too jetlagged to try and figure out the exchange rate, and Brendon—who was smarter than people gave him credit for—could work it out but wouldn't tell Spencer how much they'd spent, so instead they went down to the harbor and bought coffee in polystyrene cups from a vendor by the gate. The weather was cold enough that all the food they'd just bought would be just fine in the car for a while.

"This is really pretty," Brendon said, wrapping his jacket around him even tighter, and cupping his coffee in closed hands, "but we need to find some fucking warm clothes, man, otherwise we are going to die of fucking cold."

"You're telling me," Spencer complained, bumping his elbow against Brendon's in solidarity. "Let's go find a place that sells stuff we're not going to die of cold in."

"In a minute," Brendon said. "Let's walk to the end of the pier, first."

The pier was a long, concrete jetty that ran right out into the bay, shored up on either side by huge gray rocks and plenty of seaweed. The ferry terminal was out to their left, and to the right was the bulk of the town, laid out on the hillside in a crazy mass of winding roads and suburban crescents, some of the streetlights already on. The wind that was coming off the sea was bitter and freezing; if it wasn't for the coffee, Spencer was sure his nose would have dropped off in protest at being so fucking cold. The sea was gray and uninviting, white-tipped waves rolling in across the whole of the bay. The waves looked curiously flat compared to home.

"They have porpoises in the summertime," Brendon said. "It said on the information board back there. You can stand here and watch the porpoises swim by."

"Yeah," Spencer said, and the moment was easy and relaxed, and for a while neither of them felt the need to say anything at all. The sky, overcast and dull, was darker than either Spencer or Brendon was used to, back in LA, and Spencer wondered what it would be like to live here all the time in winter, and have the sun hidden away behind the clouds.

"Come on," Brendon said, after a while of companionable freezing quiet. "Let's go find somewhere that will sell us sweaters and wind-proof jackets."

~*~


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We look like idiots," Spencer said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra thanks to harriet-vane for this part.

~*~

"We look like idiots," Spencer said, a couple of hours later, as Brendon took the lane down to the beach that Dave had suggested earlier. They'd just been home to drop off the groceries, and now they were heading out to find food. "Total fucking idiots."

"Hmmm," Brendon said, without really committing to an answer. The lane was single-track, which they were kind of getting used to, but it was also really fucking steep, and carved into the hillside, so where the lane ended to their right, a steep incline of trees was the only thing between them and almost-certain death. Spencer had started obsessively counting passing places, the curved swellings in the lane that took it from single-track to just wide enough for two cars to pass, just for the length of a parking spot. He waited until he'd negotiated the next lethal bend in the street before saying anything else. "At least no one is going to see us that we know."

"Good," Spencer said, grumpily. It turned out that the local town didn't actually have any clothes stores, unless you counted the one store which stocked things for old ladies and had one rack of clothes for those women under forty who wanted to splash out and show an inch of calf. The only thing it did have was a kind of tiny outlet store, where clothes that were either a few seasons out of date or had something slightly wrong with them jostled for space in the window.

Inside, it had racks of shirts and sweaters, mostly of the kind that Spencer's uncles tended to wear, woolen and v-necked and patterned like a TV screen where the signal had gone kaput. They'd bought three of the sweaters each, and some thick day-glo neon socks. Brendon bought some plaid flannel pajamas that were two sizes too big for him and were built for someone seven feet tall, but what the fuck ever, if they were going to spend their time here eating breakfast in the kitchen and staring out the window, they needed warm clothes to do it in. There was also a whole rack where you could buy pajamas that were either missing pants or a shirt. Spencer wasn't sure that that counted as pajamas.

They were let down, however, by the lack of waterproof, windproof coats. There weren't any at all in the men's section, but they were desperate, and in the middle of nowhere, so they ended up in the women's section, trying on coats with hoods and inner fleece removable linings and more pockets than either of them knew what to do with. Neither of them came from families that were particularly outdoorsy; and, anyway, growing up in Las Vegas hadn't exactly called for the kind of coats that they needed right now.

It was just their luck that all the coats were lurid and purple.

"I guess at least we'll be warm," Spencer grumbled, as Brendon took an s-bend at a snail's pace. "And dry, hopefully. Doesn't it look like rain to you?"

"Concentrating," Brendon pointed out, braking as he spotted a car coming up the road towards them. "Fuck, we're going to die. Why doesn't anyone else look like they're terrified by the roads apart from us?"

"He's pulling in to that passing place," Spencer said. Brendon edged the car down the road even slower than before. Brendon was usually fearless and thought risks were there to be taken, but clearly that didn't extend to tiny winding roads down Welsh hillsides in weather that promised rain.

It was worth it, though, by the time they got to the bottom of the hill. They were in a tiny valley, banked on one side by a beach, and on the other by a parking lot with a smattering of cars, a tiny stone pub, and a wood. Dave had promised them that there was a path through the wood that led to another beach, but it looked like it was beginning to rain, and Spencer thought that exploring might be something they could leave for another day. In front of them, the road trailed away to nothing, ending in a gate, the path that replaced the road winding up and up again as the hillside turned into the headland.

"Wow," Brendon said, pulling into the parking lot. "This place is amazing."

It was, and not just because it was nothing like the coastline back home, bright and beautiful and drenched in sunshine. Here, the coast was craggy and wild and gray. From the parking lot, they could see the cliffs all the way along the coastline, all the way back to the town they'd just come from, where the lights were starting to blink on as dusk started to make good on its promise to show up again. It was endless and rugged and a million miles away from LA.

"Dave was right, then. Good place for pictures."

"Come on," Brendon said, tugging at Spencer's sleeve. "Before the light goes."

They took pictures on the beach, clad in their stupid lurid coats. The sand was dark and drenched and cold, the seaweed line almost up to the wall that marked the edge of the beach. There were rocks to both sides of the beach, and once they had taken their pictures of the coastline, they wasted twenty minutes poking at the rock pools and trying not to fall over as they clambered over the wet, gray rocks. Spencer was thankful that the tide was so far out; they were in no danger of being cut off as they wandered further from the beach.

They stopped, and took more pictures, and then Spencer slipped on the rocks, seaweed coming from nowhere, and Brendon reached out to grab him, fingers curling around Spencer's wrist.

"Careful," Brendon said, eyes flitting to Spencer's, just for a moment.

"Yeah," Spencer said. It was his new coat that was making him feel so warm. That was it. "We should get back." He wished he had gloves. They'd have to head back into town tomorrow and get better gloves, and scarves, and hats. There had been waterproof pants too, the kind that you pulled on over the top of the pants you were wearing, and Spencer couldn't help but think that they would at least be warmer than his jeans right now. He didn't let himself think about the boots they should both be wearing, ones with grips so they wouldn't break their neck on the rocks. There was only so much stuff they could buy when they were only here for a couple of weeks.

"You want to try that fish and chip restaurant?" Brendon asked, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain, and pointing at the pub and restaurant that edged onto the beach from the parking lot. "That's the one Dave suggested, right?"

"Yeah," Spencer said. "Come on."

The parking lot was busier than it had been when they'd first gone on to the beach. Now it really was getting dark, and along with the twinkle of lights from the town down the coast, they could see the periodic flashing of the lighthouse even further south. The parking lot was busier, too, and from the restaurant they could hear the buzz of conversation.

It was all going swimmingly until they got inside to find that most of the restaurant had been booked out for an eightieth birthday party. "Oh," Spencer said, suddenly disappointed. He'd had chicken tikka masala the last time they'd been in the UK, and after that they'd spent the whole visit checking out Indian restaurant after Indian restaurant. They'd been in the UK more times than Spencer could even remember, but they'd never actually had fish and chips—not so far as he could remember, at least.

"We do takeaway, though," the guy behind the counter said. It was the strangest set up that Spencer could remember seeing—there were two lines up to the counter, one marked "sitting in", the other marked "takeaway". Underneath, there was a polite sign saying that equal numbers were seen from each line, so no pushing. What made it even more bizarre to Spencer—and to Brendon, who was nudging Spencer and pointing at the sign—was that this was a tiny restaurant at the bottom of a fucking _lethal_ country lane down a steep hillside, and yet there were still very strict rules about queuing systems. The "sitting in" line was full of old ladies with walkers, and Spencer was suddenly filled with a lot of unanswered questions about how twenty wizened old ladies had made it down that lane, and why they were expected to line up to order their food when this was a _restaurant_ , and waiters were supposed to come to the table. Clearly the Welsh were not as terrified by single-track lanes as he and Brendon were, but the lining-up system remained an enigma.

This whole place was crazy.

The guy behind the counter kept trying to wave them forward, but, frankly, neither Spencer nor Brendon could stomach the idea of getting served before any of the old ladies who had been lining up for longer than either of them, so they took a couple of steps back and leaned against the wall instead. They didn't mind waiting. The walls were full of really fucking old photographs of the area, with handwritten labels underneath each one to explain who the picture belonged to, and what it was of. For some reason, Brendon kept looking at the ones of the old fishermen, with their thick knitted sweaters and full beards.

"Maybe we could do an album of sea shanties," Brendon suggested once they'd been waiting a while. "Look at this guy's mustache. You think we could beat that if we put our minds to it?"

The man in the picture had a huge mustache that curled over in loops at the ends. It was pretty amazing.

"Sure," Spencer said. "Let's try and beat it when we get home."

"Let's not shave until we have an album," Brendon suggested, and then his face fell. "We might be stuck with mustaches forever then, at this rate."

Spencer frowned. "We'll figure it out, Brendon," he said, which is what he always said.

"Yeah, but _when_ ," Brendon said in frustration, and this was reminiscent of the way he'd sounded before they'd left LA, when writing had been a source of grief for them both. They'd taken to drinking their way through it and coming up with nothing.

Spencer touched his elbow to Brendon's. "Look," he said, slowly. "Maybe we should—let's talk about what we're doing. We haven't done that for a while."

Brendon didn't do very well at covering up his panic. "Okay," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets and hunching his shoulders up.

"B," Spencer said, quickly. "I just mean—look. It's been really hard, right? And doesn't it just feel like we've hit a wall?"

Brendon shrugged. "I guess," he said.

"Ryan always used to show up with these songs fully formed," Spencer went on. "But we don't work like that, you and me, so we should maybe stop trying to do stuff the way we did stuff before, that's all I'm saying."

"Have you been thinking about that for a while?" Brendon asked.

"Not really," Spencer said. "Maybe it's the Welsh air."

"Just checking," Brendon asked carefully, "but when you say stop trying to do what we've done before, you don't mean breaking up the band, do you?"

Spencer looked at him. "No," he said softly. "I don't mean that at all."

"Okay. Good."

"We could talk about it when we get back to the cottage, if you want," Spencer suggested. "After dinner."

Brendon glanced at the line of old ladies, which was thankfully getting a lot shorter. There were only a couple of ladies between them and their turn at the counter, now. "I don't want to do what we've done before, Spence."

"Well, what we do now doesn't have to be a linear progression from everything we've done before. I don't know. Maybe we should just try thinking about the songs we want to write, and stop thinking about the album we think we should make. Try it from a new perspective."

Brendon looked at the floor for a moment longer. When he looked up again, his eyes were bright. "That's a song about blow jobs."

Spencer looked at the pictures again, and didn't meet Brendon's eyes. It must be hot in here, he was suddenly stupidly warm inside his coat. "Yes," he said finally. "It is."

"Yeah," Brendon echoed, his elbow brushing Spencer's, and as the last little old lady made her choice at the counter, Brendon stepped up to follow her. "So, imagine you have two Americans who've never had fish and chips before... what would you recommend?"

The guy grinned, slowly. "Are you the honeymooners that are staying in Dave and Mary's place?"

This whole coastline was fucking incestuous, Spencer grumbled to himself. "We are," he said, a little cautiously. One thing that could be said for being in Wales was that they were fairly anonymous, not because they didn't expect anyone in Wales to listen to Panic!, but because no one in Wales expected them to be here. Over the years Spencer had come to realize that there was no better hiding place than going somewhere no one expected you to be. Any sightings of them tended to be explained away as a mistake, especially when even the people who knew them expected them to be in California.

"Great," the guy said, holding his hand out over the counter for them to shake. He was wearing a blue latex glove. "Oh," he realized, looking down at the glove and pulling his hand back. "I'm Gareth. It's so great that you're gay and married."

"Uh-huh," Spencer managed, because it was one thing to accidentally tick a box on a website when you were drunk—it was entirely another to have to live out the lie to a whole coastline of people.

"It's amazing," Gareth went on, not giving either of them time to talk. "You should come down the pub with me and my mates whilst you're here."

"Yeah?" Brendon said, and he sounded enthusiastic, which was Brendon's way. Brendon could talk to people and shed his inhibitions in a way that Spencer never could . Even after all these years of interviews, he sometimes still found it hard talking to strangers, even though he was pretty good at it, all things considered. Sometimes it drove him crazy, other times he kind of liked that he could let Brendon do the talking, so he wasn't forced to make small talk himself.

"Yeah," Gareth went on. "My friends are great, but, like, I came out and they have no idea, you know? It's all about what they see on the telly, like _Eastenders_ and _Hollyoaks_ , and I'm not like any of those people. I thought if you might come with me, then they'd stop being weird to me. You know?"

 _Oh_ , Spencer thought, and suddenly he felt guilty for this lie they were living, for the wildly hopeful look on Gareth's face as he looked between the two of them, waiting for approval. The only person Spencer had ever told that he thought he might be bisexual were his mom, and Ryan. Both of them had taken it in their stride, but Spencer had never actually brought anyone home for either of them to meet, so it had all remained relatively theoretical.

"Sure," Brendon said, stealing a glance at Spencer. He felt weirdly guilty too, Spencer could tell. He plastered on a smile, because one of the good things about being here was that nobody knew who the fuck they were, at least, so if one consequence of their accidental lie was helping someone out, then it was probably the least they could do.

"Ace," Gareth said. "Tomorrow, do you? Are you still here then?" At Brendon's nod, he started to draw them a map on the back of a menu, and to explain that the pub was the one on the main road just at the spot where the lane up from the valley hit it. "Any time after about half past seven," he said. "And I'll do you two fish, chips, and mushy peas, with curry sauce and a buttered roll. You should really have tea to go with it, hang on, I'll just see if Bridget will do you some to take away. _Bridget!_ Do we have any of them takeaway cups left? These are the couple that have just got married, they've taken Dave and Mary's cottage for Christmas." This last part was directed to the whole room, if only because Bridget was the waitress currently handing out bread and butter to the whole of the eightieth birthday party gathering.

Spencer could feel his cheeks flushing.

Brendon awkwardly waved at everyone. "Hi," he said, and Bridget just smiled at them and said she'd be right over.

"This is going really well," Spencer said in an undertone, when Gareth was busy spooning great scoops of fries into polystyrene trays. "This is, like, so much more than I could have imagined when you started watching _The_ stupid fucking _Holiday_."

"It's not so bad," Brendon said with a grin. "Look at that old lady over there, she hasn't stopped grinning at us for the last five minutes."

Spencer stopped himself putting his head in his hands, and instead busied himself trying to figure out which bill was which as he tried to figure out how much they were going to get charged. The money was pretty easy, once he got it fixed in his head, but it always took him a couple of days to figure out which currency he actually had in his wallet when they were on tour overseas, and this vacation was turning out to be no different.

In every other way, though, this vacation was not going anything like the way in which he'd imagined it going.

~*~

They ate their fish and chips in the parking lot by the beach, sitting in the back seat with their paper-wrapped fish and chips laid out between them on the seat. There were polystyrene trays with huge portions of too-hot thick-cut fries, with a piece of large battered cod resting on the top, and the car already smelled like salt and vinegar. The tub of curry sauce looked kind of revolting, but Spencer braved dipping a fry in it and found that it tasted delicious, if nothing like actual curry. He tipped the rest of his tub over his fish and chips, and watched in amusement as Brendon gingerly tried it.

"You can have that," Brendon told him, after one taste. "I'm going to stick with ketchup."

"Why have they given us bread and butter?" Spencer asked, mystified.

"For chip butties," Brendon said, awkwardly trying to balance a bread roll in one hand and a blue plastic fork in the other. Weren't you listening?"

"Clearly no," Spencer said. "Who puts potatoes on a sandwich?"

"Apparently, us," Brendon said. "Come on, let's do it together."

Spencer held out his fist for Brendon to bump. "Just the two of us," he said softly, which wasn't what he'd intended to say, or how he'd intended to say it.

Brendon touched his fist to Spencer's, but didn't move it away. "I never thought writing an album together was going to be so hard," he admitted quietly.

"Me neither," Spencer said. "I thought we were going to walk it."

Brendon put his bread down on the paper fish and chip wrapper. "I thought we were going to walk into the studio and get the whole fucking album written and wrapped by now. I thought we had it."

Spencer's breath caught in his throat. "Me too," he said, too quickly. His heart pounded. He had been thinking this for weeks, but he'd thought it was just him.

"Oh fuck," Brendon tried to laugh. "I was so scared we were just going to fall apart, like—" he stopped. _Like before_ , Spencer filled in for him. _Like before, with Brent and Ryan and Jon_.

"I'm not going anywhere," Spencer said. He was still holding a fry. It was burning his fingers. "I just think we haven't figured out how this is going to work, that's all. How we're going to write."

"How do you think it should work?"

Spencer made a face. "Let's get a fucking studio together. Let's make a list of everything we want to try out, or what we liked about Fever or Pretty. Odd. Let's get rid of everything we've done already that we don't like. Let's talk about what we do like."

"I don't want to make either of those albums again, Spence."

"Me neither," Spencer admitted. "But I want to fucking play the drums. I want it to be _hard_."

Brendon grinned. "Me too," he said.

Spencer found himself grinning back, unable to help himself. It felt like a weight had been lifted from his chest, and he couldn't even pinpoint _why_. He'd been worried about this stuff for weeks, and it wasn't like they'd suddenly figured out any of the answers to the questions that had been plaguing them since the summer. The relief of sharing it, and finding that Brendon felt at least partly the same way, gave him hope that they could figure their shit out, that there was a way through.

"You okay?" Brendon asked.

"Yeah," Spencer said, and for the first time in a while, he felt like he could be. They could be.

"Awesome," Brendon said. "Let's have us some potatoes and bread, huh?"

~*~ 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's not like we haven't jerked off on the bus at the same time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to harriet-vane for her last minute brit-picking. <3

~*~

"Let's have French fry sandwiches every day we're here," Spencer said, as Brendon negotiated the road up from the beach a while later. It was even more terrifying in the dark, although they could at least see the headlights from approaching cars a little easier than in the daylight.

"Chip butties," Brendon corrected him, grinning.

" _Every day_ ," Spencer repeated. "Twice a day. Let's have them for breakfast."

Brendon snorted. "You're a crazy man."

"I'm in love," Spencer said, and if he saw Brendon's hands tighten on the steering wheel then he wasn't going to admit it. "French fry sandwiches and me. Our union will be long and fruitful. We're going to get married."

"You'll have to divorce me, first," Brendon said.

"Never," Spencer said, over the too-fast beating of his heart. "We'll be an incestuous threesome."

"Weirdo," Brendon said affectionately, and Spencer clung on for dear life as Brendon pulled into the passing place to let a Land Rover past. "You know, I'm getting to like these roads."

"Who's the weirdo now?" Spencer muttered, but Brendon just laughed, and set off again up the road.

~*~

Spencer woke up later that night to Brendon's dick poking him in the thigh. Brendon's _hard_ dick. "Your _dick_ ," he said, sleepily, trying to find Brendon's arm to push him away.

"'s'not my fault," Brendon grumbled, trying to roll away, but failing as they were wrapped up so tightly in all the sheets. "Orgasms are awesome."

"So's sleep," Spencer pointed out, joining Brendon in trying to untangle themselves from the sheets. Even now that they had figured out how to work the heating - although not how to light the fire in the living room - it was still cold in the bedroom in the middle of the night.

"I need to jerk off," Brendon sighed, doing some kind of weird, awkward, worm-like slithering motion to free himself from the twisted sheets. His dick was still too close to Spencer's thigh. "'cept, you know. Sleeping next to you. I miss jerking off."

Spencer rolled his eyes. Now _he_ was thinking about jerking off, too, when two minutes ago he'd been lost in a perfectly good dream about a beer fountain. It may only have been a couple of days, but most of their last day in LA had been spent drunk and passed out, so it wasn't like there had been much time for sneaking off and having special private orgasm time. It felt like forever ago since he'd last had his hand on his dick.

Spencer could, at a push, jerk off in the shower, but he preferred it in an actual bed. He tried not to think too hard about jerking off in _this_ bed. With Brendon nearby.

"It's not like we haven't jerked off on the bus at the same time." His brain felt kind of addled, and that dream about beer fountains had been _good_. He wasn't sure what he was suggesting, but he was half-asleep and therefore able to blame being unable to keep a handle on what was and wasn't appropriate to say on that. His heart beat loud in his chest, and something like anticipation threaded across his skin.

There was a pause. "But not in the same bed," Brendon countered, although to Spencer it sounded like a very weak argument, and by the way that Brendon had shuffled a little closer to Spencer under the covers, not even Brendon was swayed by it.

"The distance between those bunks was probably less than the distance we could put between both of us in this bed." Spencer felt like maybe his voice sounded more reasonable than it should, considering what he was suggesting was that he and Brendon jerk off together in the same bed. Whatever, he was half asleep and right now nothing sounded better in the whole fucking world than an orgasm. He could figure out why jerking off next to Brendon seemed like such a good idea some other time, when his brain wasn't so caught up with his dick.

"Fuck it," Brendon said, and there was yet more wriggling, but this time Spencer knew that what Brendon was doing was shrugging his pajama pants down to his knees so that he could free his dick. All of a sudden, Spencer was stupidly turned on, and he pulled his pants down too. "What happens in this bed stays in this bed," Brendon said, with an awkward laugh. "It's like Vegas, but with less cops. And parents."

"Deal," Spencer agreed, suddenly a lot more awake than he had been two minutes earlier. "I'd shake on it but I've got my hand on my dick."

"Ew," Brendon said, but it didn't sound like he meant it, which made Spencer feel kind of weirdly turned on. Underneath the covers they were close enough that Spencer could feel the way Brendon's arm was moving, the rustle and the brush of his hand underneath the sheets. Spencer ran his hands over his own dick, cupping his balls and giving them a squeeze before rubbing the heel of his hand loosely over the underside of his erection. He was fairly sure this should have been weird, but instead of obsessing over it, he was choosing to dedicate what part of his attention was actually awake to the matter in hand, which was actually _his_ hand, and his dick. And jerking it.

Fuck, he was a mess when he was three quarters asleep. None of this was his fault. He couldn't be expected to make sane, rational decisions when he was mostly asleep and Brendon was lying next to him.

He didn't even need any of the stock of fantasies he normally kept close at hand for jerking off opportunities, because he had everything that he needed _here_ , in the new discovery that apparently voyeurism was for him. Brendon was breathless and loud, and the sound of his hand on his dick was apparently doing strange and unusual things to Spencer's dick. It was, he figured, like having porn right there and in front of him, happening without a laptop screen and those really annoying flash ads all the way down the side of the screen. Most of the time he didn't need to see some guy pounding some girl harder and harder. That wasn't his thing at all. More and more, recently, he'd skipped the straight porn entirely and gone straight to the gay tab, which was something he should probably think about at some point.

But anyway, the point was that he was jerking off in the same bed as Brendon, and rather than putting a damper on things, so to speak, it was actually kind of making it hotter, which might have been weird if Spencer wasn't so focused on his orgasm.

Oh fuck, Spencer loved his dick. He really fucking loved his dick.

"You said that out loud," Brendon told him, breathlessly. Even in the dark of the bedroom, with only the faintest slither of gray moonlight sneaking its way through the gap in the curtains, Spencer could see him smirking.

"Fuck you," Spencer told him succinctly, and kicked at the covers to give himself more room. Normally he could jerk off for ages without coming—stamina was totally his thing —but tonight he was more concerned with speed, and getting off, and the way the room smelled, and getting back to sleep again.

Totally the last one.

He didn't care that he could hear Brendon's hand on his dick, or the catch of his breath, or the rustle of the bedclothes. He wasn't wondering if Brendon was listening to him, or watching him. He was one-hundred percent paying attention to his own dick, and only his dick.

Fuck, this was hot.

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Brendon said, in a tight, high voice, and that must mean he was coming, and Jesus, that was fast.

"That was fast," Spencer managed, although he was jerking himself hard now, bringing his knee up and half rolling over on to his side to get a better grip. He couldn't keep still when he was jerking off, always shifting his feet and rolling over and trying something different, holding out longer, rocking his hips up.

"Slowpoke," Brendon shot back, but his voice sounded thick and lazy and already a little sleepy. He rolled over onto his side, which had the added benefit of dragging the covers a little tauter and giving Spencer a bit more free space to move his fist, which Spencer liked. He jerked himself even faster, breath coming thick and fast.

He didn't know how much of that was down to having an audience, and how much of that was three days without jerking off.

"Fuck," Spencer said after a moment, and came hard all over his fist.

Orgasms were awesome, and the intensity of this one had nothing to do with Brendon's proximity, and everything to do with how long it had been since his last one.

Definitely.

Only waiting long enough to wipe his hand on his discarded t-shirt from that day—which he'd helpfully left on the floor by the night stand - he was asleep and snoring before he'd even said anything else to Brendon.

~*~

In the morning, they spent an awkwardly quiet breakfast time deliberately not looking at each other, and repeatedly commenting on how good the coffee was. It didn't need the five times they said it to each other for Spencer to realize that the coffee was, in fact, actually pretty good, but it didn't stop him from talking about it. The alternative was talking about last night, though, and even though his orgasm had been amazing, and the way he'd passed out straight afterwards and only woken up when Brendon had crawled out of bed this morning must have spoken of _something,_ but Spencer chose not to concentrate on what, exactly.

"What do you want to do today?" Spencer said finally, when even he couldn't figure out a way to say _man, this coffee is good_ in yet another way. His personal thesaurus abilities had run dry. He was out of synonyms. And coffee.

"Go somewhere with a view," Brendon replied promptly, at which point the heavens opened outside and it started to rain with a vengeance. It took approximately twenty seconds for the view across the fields to the cliffs to disappear into the dank, gray fog.

"Something inside, maybe," Spencer suggested. Brendon made a face.

"That was your fault," he said darkly, and Spencer grinned, tugging the mostly depleted welcome basket across the table to pull out the handful of leaflets and the map.

"Let's pick something and be tourists. Castle? Oh, hang on, that isn't open between November and April, so that's screwed. Coast path? No fucking way. We'd be drowned, or you'd fall off the cliff."

"Hey," Brendon protested, but not as strongly as he could have. Anyway, they both knew that Spencer was the one who was more likely to fall off something while standing still, but Brendon was kind enough not to bring that up. Falling off a riser at the beginning of sound check was perfectly reasonable behavior. "What about this place?" Brendon passed a leaflet over to Spencer. "St. David's. This leaflet says the visitor center is open all year around, which is a step up from every other place in this basket."

Spencer peered over Brendon's shoulder. The leaflet had a picture of a huge, stupidly old—but intact—cathedral, and a ruined castle on the front of it, and inside, in among some other stuff, a picture of an artisan chocolate shop.

"Let's go there," Spencer said, without missing a beat, and Brendon laughed. That box of amazing chocolates hadn't lasted their first day. They definitely needed more, even if they were going to have to make do with lesser than Blue Mountain Coffee chocolate.

"Okay, okay. Let's go get ready."

They got lost on the way to St David's, which was mostly Brendon's fault for stabbing repeatedly at the stereo and getting nothing but static in between flashes of what sounded like someone broadcasting from very far away, and failing to read any of the road signs. They ended up going around and around in circles in tiny, single-vehicle lanes, passing signs for fresh farm eggs and Christmas tree farms and farm-reared turkeys, and not a single one that said, _St. David's, this way_.

Finally, frustrated and grumpy, they pulled in at the side of the road by a sign outside a farm that said _award winning cheese! :)_ Sold by the smiley face, they parked up behind a filthy station wagon and a far too clean red Porsche.

"This cheese had _better_ be award-winning," Spencer muttered darkly, clipping the car keys to his belt clip and following Brendon through the rain—which at least was less hard than it had been when they'd left the cottage—and getting the bottoms of his jeans all wet and muddy as they walked on the grass by the side of the road.

The cheese was sold to them by a cheeseman in white rainboots, a white baker's hat and striped overalls under a white apron. He was also devastatingly handsome, something that Spencer couldn't actually ignore, especially when he turned out to have an accent that sounded like _actual_ music. Spencer spent a moment bemoaning the fact he was wearing a lurid purple all-weather coat, and looked like a giant marshmallow kids' TV character—and then remembered that he wasn't actually here to swoon like a mini-series heroine into the arms of a handsome cheeseman.

Whatever, they were going to end up spending all of their combined spare cash on cheese, anyway, because clearly it wasn't just Spencer who was captivated by the hot cheeseman, although Brendon was pretending it was the strength of his sales patter. Spencer might only have come out to two people in his life—his mom, and Ryan—and Brendon's never come out to him, but sometimes he thinks that they both should have used their words a hell of a lot earlier. He's sure that both of them are at least bisexual, even if they've never come out and said it to each other.

"This is traditionally smoked using wood from sustainable forests, Spence," Brendon told him knowledgably, as the cheeseman cut them slither after slither of cheese to try, and the pile of cheeses they had to wade through before deciding what to buy grew bigger and bigger. Brendon was clearly a fast learner, as twenty minutes earlier his cheese knowledge had essentially been white, yellow, or comes in a can. Now he was trying to pick between a mould cultured cow cheese or a hard goat cheese as their final option for the basket of truckles.

Seriously, _truckle_ was Spencer's new favorite word. After cheeseman, which was coming decidedly near the top.

"Oh, _Jesus_ ," Spencer said, flicking through the pamphlets on the counter top as Brendon asked questions about cheesemaking that Spencer couldn't find the enthusiasm to listen to, not when there was cheese to try. "Brendon, if you don't buy me the Valentine's Day gift set, then you and I are through."

There was a long, slightly awkward pause, during which Spencer remembered that a) they weren't actually a couple, and b) he had just fake-outed them to a cheeseman with dimples that Spencer couldn't stop staring at.

"Um," Spencer said, trying not to flush bright red. "Look." He shoved the pamphlet at Brendon instead, who read out the contents list of the gift set.

"Two mini cheese truckles," Brendon read, "Welsh mustard, Cadbury's mini eggs, homemade Welsh cakes, homemade chutney, and Welsh honey." He blinked. "Seriously, you should buy that for me, not the other way around." He grinned at the cheeseman. "Do you ship to America?"

The cheeseman didn't bat an eyelid. "We have Christmas hampers, if you can't wait until Valentine's Day."

"Fuck," Spencer said, because neither of them had noticed the hampers, all laid out on a huge dresser on the wall behind them. They'd both been so overwhelmed with free cheese tasting that they hadn't noticed the giant Christmas display behind them.

"Let's eat nothing but cheese until we fly back home," Brendon said, already picking up the pamphlets on display. He dismissed a couple of smaller options easily, and then handed over the pamphlet for the luxury deluxe hamper with something like hope in his eyes.

Spencer blinked. _A truckle of all eight of our award-winning cheeses._ Seriously, truckle was going to be his new favorite word. _Additional cheese!: Welsh Blue_ _Mountain blue cheese. Homemade chutney, Welsh red mustard, Welsh punch, Welsh mead, Welsh chocolate—_ Spencer was sensing a Welsh theme to the hamper— _a copy of_ The Welsh Cheese Book _and a selection of cheese biscuits_.

"We'll have that one," Brendon said. "Can we take it now?"

Spencer allowed himself to think about his bank balance just for ten seconds, and then he rolled his eyes. They could just slog it out touring for the rest of forever on the two albums they already had, if worst came to worst. Or personally ensure that Jennifer's Body got regular repeat viewings on TV so they could live off New Perspective. Whatever, it was a possibility.

The cheeseman grinned. "Let me pack one up for you. I'll throw in some of Mum's piccalilli too, it's great."

Brendon and Spencer exchanged glances. Yeah, no. Spencer had nothing.

The hamper was so large that they had to clear space in the trunk to fit it in. Buying it had been the most stupid idea either of them had ever had—until Spencer reminded himself why they were here in the first place—but whatever, it was in keeping with the whole stupid vacation.

"Let's cheese it out," Spencer said, and Brendon snorted, clapping Spencer on the back.

"To the fucking _max_ , dude," he said, and then neatly grabbed the car keys off Spencer's belt clip. "My turn to drive; you can fucking navigate us to wherever the fuck we're going."

Where they were going turned out to be the strangest city either of them had ever come across.

"This is not a city," Brendon said flatly, pulling into the parking lot. "This is four houses and a visitor center."

"This place dreams of being a small town," Spencer agreed, trying to peer out of the window to figure out whether they needed to pay or not. Pay and display parking lots confused him, since there were all kinds of rules they needed to read through to figure out whether they needed to pay or not. Some of the places were free off-season, apparently, but Spencer was fucked if he knew what the season was. In the end, he stuffed a handful of change into the machine and pressed the green button. After a minute, the machine chugged out a sticker.

Brendon grabbed it. "Awesome," he said. "You've paid for twenty-four hours. Fuck, how will we see all of this place in twenty-four hours?"

St David's was one of the UK's smallest cities, the information board said. Home to one of the best surfing coasts in Britain, the city catered to tourists wanting to surf, or visit the nearby bird sanctuaries, but primarily to visitors of the cathedral. The cathedral was older than their country, although obviously not as old as the land. Spencer elbowed Brendon at the picture of surfers.

"That's not surf," he said.

Brendon cocked his head to one side. "It's not _not_ surf."

"Hmmm," Spencer said. "Hey, look at that puffin. It's giving us the evil eye."

"Giving _you_ the evil eye, you mean." Brendon elbowed him. "Do you want to go inside?"

Inside the visitor center were racks and racks of pamphlets showing how great the area was in the summertime, but now it was two weeks before Christmas and what Brendon and Spencer really needed were things to do _now_ , and not in August. The woman behind the counter had short, gray, curly hair and was wearing a roll-neck sweater. She spoke with an accent so thick that Spencer had to listen really carefully to make out what she was saying, but she had a December issue of the local magazine, and she took them through it, highlighting the Christmas fairs and markets and concerts.

"Awesome," Brendon said, smiling disarmingly brightly. "Thank you so much, you've been really helpful."

"You should both walk down to the cathedral and see inside. The Bishop's Palace is closed for the winter but the cathedral is really beautiful. And there's a chocolate shop at the other side of the town square—"

Spencer grinned as Brendon demanded that she write down where it was. He wandered off, to look at the racks of gifts and toys and books. He'd picked out tiny stuffed red dragons—the Welsh mascot—for his sisters, and for his parents - and a learn Welsh book, just because, and fudge and pencils with dragons on them, and stuff for Amelie and Bronx. Buying stuff for kids was the _best._ His arms were full when he saw the stand with the fridge magnets on, and he almost dropped the whole lot when he found the one with the dress your own Viking set, complete with naked magnetic Viking.

"Oh my god, Brendon, get over here." He beckoned Brendon over, careful not to drop his armful of gifts. "Look at that."

"Holy fuck," Brendon said, laughing. "Look at that. That Viking looks just like you. Let's buy one for everyone and they can all play Dress Up Spencer." He handed Spencer a basket, and Spencer upended his purchases into it.

"There's a girl one, too." _Dress your own Renaissance lady_ didn't have the same ring to it as Viking, though. "Huh, look, tilt your head that way and imagine she didn't have her hair up. Doesn't she look like you?"

"No," Brendon said—too quickly, which meant _yes_. Spencer dumped three of each set into his basket, jealously guarding them whenever Brendon tried to dart in and take the Renaissance lady out.

"This is an awesome vacation," Spencer said brightly, as the woman put the magnets through the register first. Brendon just rolled his eyes and dumped his own pile of gifts down on the counter next to Spencer's. "Whatever," he said. "You love it."

Brendon would love it when Spencer pasted a picture of his face over the top of the Renaissance lady's, whatever.

~*~


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer was considering buying a laminator when they got back to LA, though, because the idea of getting to laminate passive aggressive notes for when they were on the bus was too good an idea to pass up. He had vague ideas of finding some truly amazing signs from the internet and putting them around Brendon's house, too. _If you sprinkle when you tinkle_ could be just the tip of a very ridiculous iceberg. He planned on doing a nighttime swoop and then having Brendon just wake up to a house full of notes in Comic Sans with borders of little cups of coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta by octette. Additional, post-edits britpicking by harriet-vane. <33

~*~

"Do we have to change?" Brendon asked, once they'd finally stumbled back into the house later that evening, after the rest of the day mostly consisted of more cheese, more chocolate, and the naked, magnetic, dress-your-own-Viking play set. "For the pub?"

"I'm not," Spencer said lazily, tipping forward onto the couch and burying his face in the cushion. "But, then, I _like_ the smell of twelve tons of very heavily matured cheese. It's like aftershave. Hey, you know what this place is missing? A _dog_."

"Bogart," Brendon said, frowning. "You think we can find someplace we can go and call Shane at some point?"

"You don't mean call Shane, you mean call Bogart," Spencer said in a muffled voice, not moving from the couch. "And we've got internet, let's just Skype him."

Brendon shoved Spencer's feet out of the way. Even though they ostensibly had the internet, Spencer had tried to figure out the complicated instructions Dave and Mary had written out in very neat handwriting and then laminated. Even though he'd followed the instructions to the letter, all his laptop had done was stare miserably at him and refuse to connect to anything resembling the web. Spencer was considering buying a laminator when they got back to LA, though, because the idea of getting to laminate passive aggressive notes for when they were on the bus was too good an idea to pass up. He had vague ideas of finding some truly amazing signs from the internet and putting them around Brendon's house, too. _If you sprinkle when you tinkle_ could be just the tip of a very ridiculous iceberg. He planned on doing a nighttime swoop and then having Brendon just wake up to a house full of notes in Comic Sans with borders of little cups of coffee. Microsoft Publisher had a lot to answer for.

"Hey," Brendon poked him in the side. "Don't fall asleep, we're supposed to be going to the bar."

"To pretend we're married," Spencer said flatly, since this whole thing was his fault—or, rather, Brendon's fault for putting the stupid fucking movie on in the first place—and he felt kind of bad about the whole thing. He didn't want to go and be someone's positive role model for successful gay living when that wasn't actually what they were.

"Call it punishment," Brendon said lightly. There was something just this side of unfamiliar in Brendon's eyes, and Spencer didn't like that. Since the split—and for a while before it, too—it had just been the two of them, together, and Spencer prided himself on knowing pretty much everything that Brendon had to share. He didn't like it when he couldn't tell what Brendon was thinking, and recently it had seemed like it was happening more often. He couldn't tell if Brendon was deliberately hiding his feelings from him or not, but the possibility was a concern. What if they _were_ growing further apart? What if they really weren't ever going to mesh musically again? It was so confusing, because sometimes Spencer felt they were growing closer, but at other times, it felt like just the opposite.

Spencer groaned, and rolled his shoulders, pulling himself awkwardly up into a sitting position. The lights twinkled merrily on the Christmas tree, and just for a moment Spencer imagined getting to stay here, with Brendon, for the whole of Christmas. He couldn't help the way his mind wandered towards sharing blankets and wine and Christmas morning. He couldn't help the way he kept thinking about last night, about sharing a bed and jerking off and getting to do that again, at Christmas. About how much he secretly wanted that.

"If his friends turn out to be assholes I'm blaming you," he said. "I'm going to change my shirt."

Gareth's friends did not appear at first glance to be assholes, which was a good thing, even though the pub turned out to be the kind of place where every single person in there knew that they were the gay married couple who'd rented out Mary and Dave's cottage for the holidays.

His friends weren't assholes, but they were interested, and Spencer had the uneasy experience of being stared at by a whole table of people while Brendon was at the bar with Gareth getting them their drinks. All five of Gareth's friends were sitting opposite him, all staring at him. He imagined this would be what an interview panel was like, if he'd ever actually had to sit before one of those. It was faintly reminiscent of some of the worst interviews they'd done as a band, but at least in those he could deflect attention towards Brendon, who _liked_ talking to people. Being in a successful band did have its perks, although not being recognized in the darkest depths of the Welsh coast wasn't one of them. Or maybe it was, if the alternative was accidentally outing themselves as the gay married couple in Dave and Mary's vacation cottage.

The three guys were looking at him in bewildered confusion, which was maybe a little reassuring considering that was how Spencer felt too, while the girls looked predatorily interested, which was not.

"So," one of them said, resting her cheek on her palm. Her hair was a mass of tight curls, and right in the middle was a huge fuchsia flower. She'd introduced herself as Clare. "How long have you been with Brendon?"

"Fuck," Spencer said, without checking himself. He shot a glance towards the bar, but Brendon was leaning on it, chatting to the barman and Gareth, and no amount of wishing would make him turn around and realize Spencer's distress. "I've known Brendon since I was sixteen," he said, which wasn't an answer but was the closest he was going to be able to get without perjuring himself. Again. This was the last time he was ever completing an online form again, and he was never letting himself near a computer with alcohol in his system ever, ever, ever again.

"Awww," the other girl said. She was tall and round and had a squashed nose. Spencer liked that about her. She was Becca. "That's really sweet."

"Not really," Spencer said. "He had this one sweater, yellow and black striped. It was like the only thing he owned, I swear. He looked like a bumble bee."

"No way," Becca said, staring openly at Brendon leaning over the bar. "But he's so—he doesn't look like the kind of guy to dress like a bumble bee."

"It's okay," Claire said, glancing at Spencer and winking. "I think you can say that he's hot. His husband isn't going to disagree."

"Okay, he's too hot to have dressed like a bee."

"He was hot then, too," Spencer said, without thinking, and then went bright red. He'd come out to his mom and Ryan when he was fifteen, and not much had happened after that, but he'd be lying if he couldn't admit he hadn't at least considered Brendon's relative attractiveness when he'd shown up.

He'd actually be lying if he said he hadn't been considering Brendon's attractiveness on and off since the first time he met him, but whatever. It wasn't a _thing_. They weren't anything, marriage-deception aside. Best friends and that was all.

"Awww, of course he was," Becca said. "Have you been going out ever since then?"

"Um," Spencer managed, still bright red. Brendon was coming back over with the drinks, still talking to Gareth, who looked awkward. Gareth's three male friends were looking a little stony-faced.

"Brendon," Claire said, "Spencer was telling us how hot he found you when you were sixteen."

Brendon's gaze flicked to Spencer's, just for a moment, but his eyes were unreadable. Spencer just went even redder. "I was a hot teenager," Brendon said, lightly, and he dropped into the seat by Spencer, and slid his drink across to him. "All the high school kids wanted me."

"And only Spencer got you," Becca said, clapping her hands together before taking a long gulp of her drink. "That's adorable."

Brendon and Spencer exchanged glances. "Yeah, something like that," they said, and then Brendon turned his attention to Gareth and the three guys, who Gareth had introduced very quickly as Tom, Daniel and Griff.

"Have you all known each other long?"

"Since the first day of primary school," Claire said.

"Since playgroup, me and Daniel," Becca added. "Didn't you and Gareth go to the same playgroup, too, Griff?"

Griff shrugged. He had plaster dust on the shoulders of his sweater. He'd come straight from a house renovation, he said, and he was eyeing Brendon and Spencer with distrust. "Yep."

"Awesome," Brendon said, nodding. "Bet you know all of each other's secrets, huh?"

"Some of them," Tom said, shooting Gareth a look.

Spencer rolled his eyes. Becca saw, and managed a small, tight smile. Spencer very deliberately curled his fingers into Brendon's. "Is this going to be an issue?" he said.

"No," Daniel said. He was red-headed and tall and broad. "It isn't an issue, because we don't have a clue why you're here."

"They're _honeymooning_ ," Gareth said, sharply.

"So why are they wasting their time on us?" Tom asked. "We don't even know them."

"Don't be so rude, Tom," Becca said, shooting Brendon and Spencer an apologetic glance.

"They're here because I invited them," Gareth said. "Because I thought it would make it easier on you if you could see a gay _couple_ , and then you'd be okay with me being gay too."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "We're all fine with you being gay, Gaz. You're the one who keeps going on about it."

"Uh," Spencer said, without really knowing why he was butting in, or even what he was doing here, exactly. "He can go on about it if he wants to. He doesn't have to be quiet just to make you feel better."

"Fine, whatever," Daniel said. "He's gay, we're all fine with it, can we just have a pint and forget about it?"

"This is what I mean," Gareth said. "You're all fine with it so long as I don't actually _talk about it_. What if I want to talk about it?" He trailed off. "What if I need to talk about it?"

Griff made a face. "I'm off," he said. "Got to get home for dinner."

"Griff," Gareth said. "Please. Stay."

Griff looked at Brendon and Spencer. "Bet you talk about being gay all the time, right?"

"Bisexual, actually," Spencer said, tiredly. Next to him, Brendon's knee jerked. Spencer kept his attention firmly fixed on Griff and Gareth. "And sometimes we do." He didn't, but whatever. Some secrets were better off hidden. "Do you feel like talking about being straight sometime, without someone stopping you?"

"I never said anything about me being straight," Griff said. "That's how I know you don't have to talk about being gay all the bloody time to be it."

Gareth looked a little like he'd been hit by a bus. "Griff—" he said, which was how Spencer knew that Griff was coming out to all of them, and not just Brendon and Spencer.

 _Wow_ , Spencer thought. His surprise was clearly echoed in everyone else at the table's faces.

"So," Griff went on, unhooking his coat from the back of the chair and setting off across the pub towards the door, drink forgotten. "I'm off."

"Christ," Daniel said, and then he elbowed Gareth in the ribs. "Go after him, you dickhead."

"Oh, right," Gareth said, still sounding confused, but then he was grabbing his coat, and his pint, and heading for the door, leaving a vaguely stunned Becca, Claire, Tom and Daniel sitting around a table with Brendon and Spencer.

"So," Brendon said brightly. His knee still seemed way too close to Spencer's. "Seems like homosexuality's catching, tonight."

Claire snorted, and even Daniel raised a smile. "I'd better not be next," he said, "not sure my mum would be pleased if I cancelled my wedding with two months to go because I'd decided I fancied blokes."

"Happens to the best of us," Brendon said, elbowing Spencer. Spencer very carefully didn't say anything. It was hot in this pub. "When are you getting married?"

"Beginning of March," Daniel said. "Sophie. She works behind the bar here. You'll see her, later. She's on tonight."

"Cool," Brendon said. "How long have you been together?"

"Since we were sixteen. Same as you and your husband."

"What—oh," Brendon said, stealing a glance at Spencer. "Since we were sixteen?"

Spencer felt uncontrollably hot, all of a sudden. "Yeah," he said. "I told them that."

Brendon's face seemed very—still. Just for a moment, before he switched his attention back to Gareth's friends. Spencer wondered if he'd imagined it.

"I wish I'd found someone when I was sixteen," Claire said, wistfully. "But I was with him, then." She nodded at Tom, who didn't seem like the type to say all that much. "Great big lummock that he is. Missed the window of opportunity."

Spencer laughed, just like the rest of them, Tom included. "Do you think Griff's okay?" he asked. "Was that—did you know before?" He felt curiously involved in what appeared to be Griff's coming out story, for reasons he wasn't all that inclined to spend time thinking about.

"News to me," Becca said, shrugging. "Makes sense, though. Never had a girlfriend. Reckon that's probably why Gareth invited you both—Griff's the one who's been weird with him since he told us he was gay."

"Now we know why," Claire said. "Hey, maybe they'll end up together, Griff and Gareth."

There was silence for a moment, as they all contemplated that. Spencer found himself wondering how things would turn out in the end, before remembering that he'd known these people half an hour and wouldn't know them anymore after tonight, but whatever, his interest was piqued.

"Whatever," Daniel said. "Griff'll be back, he's left his pint behind."

The rest of the evening passed in an odd kind of a blur. It wasn't like Spencer wasn't used to making small talk with strangers—a million meet and greets had made him at least competent at it, even though it wasn't his favorite thing—and they were introduced to Daniel's girlfriend, Sophie, who wanted to talk to them about weddings. _We eloped_ , Spencer lied quickly, but he tried not to meet Brendon's gaze head-on. _We didn't arrange anything_.

Brendon's smile faltered, just for a moment, but not long enough for anyone other than Spencer to notice. Spencer didn't know why this mistake, this stupid fake-married mistake, why it wasn't turning out to be funny. He didn't know why his stomach felt like it was twisted up in knots half the time, and swooping the rest. It was all complicated and mixed up, and he'd wanted this vacation to be a rest, a break, a way to get back on track so they could go home and look at their unwritten album with fresh eyes. He sighed, and tried to smile, cheered when Brendon offered him a soft smile of his own. It wasn't as easy as he was used to, but it felt familiar, at least. Even if his stomach felt like it was in freefall.

Griff and Gareth came back in from the cold, and Griff spent most of the evening winning a fortune on the hangman quiz machine, occasionally yelling over a question for the rest of them to scramble over an answer. Spencer, after a while, found himself enjoying the evening, contrary to all expectation, although it was because of the company, and not because he got to spend a whole night with his leg pressed up against Brendon's and no reason to pull away.

It _wasn't_.

Maybe it was.

When they left, Gareth pressed his phone number into Spencer's hand and made them both promise to come back to the bar before they went back to LA. It was too easy to say yes, to pretend to be married, to pretend to be a part of something that didn't exist.

It was way too easy to go on pretending.

~*~

When Spencer woke up, it was to the tell-tale rustle of sheets as Brendon shrugged his pajama pants to mid-thigh. Spencer stayed still just as long as it took him to wake up enough to realize that Brendon was about to jerk off right next to him, and just long enough for him to feel a little left out that Brendon hadn't woken him up first so that he could join in.

"Hey," he said, groggily, rolling over and putting his hand out. "You didn't wake me—"

Brendon made a strange, gurgling kind of a noise and Spencer realized that his hand was on Brendon's dick, and that Brendon was hard.

"Oh," Spencer said, all of a sudden a hell of a lot more awake than he had been five seconds ago.

He very carefully didn't move his hand.

"Spencer," Brendon said slowly.

"I'm just saying," Spencer said. "You didn't wake me."

Brendon laughed awkwardly. "I didn't realize that this was an option." There was a pause, and then Brendon cleared his throat. "I would have woken you up if I'd known."

Spencer hadn't known right up until that moment that that was what he was offering. "Yeah, well," he said. His hand was still on Brendon's dick, and Brendon was _hard_ , and hot, and Spencer suddenly wanted nothing more than to jerk him off. "You know now."

Brendon's hips jerked, and his dick moved under Spencer's hand. "What happens in this bed stays in this bed," he said, laughing kind of nervously.

"Yeah," Spencer said distractedly. He could smell the way that Brendon was turned on, and it made him—fuck, it made him _want_. "Orgasms are awesome."

"Right?" Brendon agreed, shifting his hips again so that his dick jerked. "There's nothing wrong with orgasms. It should be the more orgasms the better. That should be a rule."

"Agreed," Spencer said, and he wasn't entirely sure he'd ever jumped from asleep to wide awake this quickly before.

Brendon swallowed. "I'm just saying," he said, "that that was permission to jerk me off. In case you didn't realize that."

Spencer buried his face in the floral sheets and breathed. Then he moved his hand, circling Brendon's dick with his fist, and started to jerk him off.

Brendon's head fell back on the pillow, and Spencer could feel how much harder Brendon was getting in his fist. Spencer was getting hard too, and he rolled over a little so he could rock his dick against the mattress. It was awkward, but he stuck a hand down between himself and the bed, trying to shrug his pajama pants down. He rocked his hips against the sheets, pants uncomfortably bunched around his thighs, trying to concentrate on jerking Brendon off. It was tough when he was all of a sudden as hard as a rock, and then it was even harder because Brendon was moving, and saying, _here, let me,_ and then they were jerking each other off.

Neither of them lasted long, which was a relief to Spencer, since he wouldn't have been able to live it down if he'd come long before Brendon. Not that it was a competition, or a race, but there was always a winner, and Spencer liked it to be him. He prided himself on his stamina. He'd _practiced_.

Brendon came with a tight, high whine, all over Spencer's fist. It was kind of gross for a minute, until Spencer came all over the sheets with Brendon's hand cupping his balls.

At least he could disappear to the bathroom with a hand covered in come and wash it off, which was more than could be said for the wet patch on the sheet.

He brought the hand towel back in to the bed with him, pointedly spreading it out over the wet patch and trying to ignore the way that Brendon was snorting in laughter.

"Shut up," Spencer said. "This is not my fault."

"You've said that a million times this vacation," Brendon told him, stretching luxuriously, like a cat, hand above his head. He rolled his hips. "You still made the booking. Fuck, this is totally what smoking in bed was invented for."

"You'd fall asleep," Spencer said, since he'd been shown a video about fire safety in elementary school and had had nightmares about it for years after seeing how fast blankets burned up. "And then we'd die. I like it best when we're alive."

"I wasn't really going to."

"Good," Spencer said, crawling back into bed and pulling the blankets up. It wasn't like the previous morning, when neither of them talked about it. Now it felt different, less stressful, easier, more like the relationship they had every day. Except with more orgasms. He put his arms behind his head, and shifted a little on the pillow so he could nudge Brendon's arm with his elbow. Getting close, he could smell the familiar tang of Brendon's sweat, and the stale remnants of the cologne he'd layered on before they'd gone to the pub with Gareth. And over the top of all that... the scent of arousal, of heat and sweat and come.

"If you're gunning to be the little spoon, you can fuck off," Brendon told him. "I want to be the little spoon."

"Shut up," Spencer said. He pressed his nose to the pale inside of Brendon's upper arm. "It's fucking cold out there. This is huddling for warmth."

"This is you doing your best impression of Bogart, you mean." Bogart was a hug stealer, a tiny, darting jolt of enthusiastic snuggles. Spencer was nothing like him. He just liked orgasms, was all.

"I just like orgasms."

There was a long, vaguely meaningful pause. "Me too," Brendon said. He waited a beat. "So, there's no reason why we shouldn't have more of them."

Spencer shifted so that he could see Brendon's face. He raised his eyebrows. Inside he felt like a ship on the ocean during a storm; he was so shaken he couldn't figure out which way was up, but he concentrated on keeping his face relatively calm. He just—there were all of these feelings caught up inside of him, and most of them were about Brendon, and orgasms, and how much Spencer was attracted to him, and how many more orgasms he wanted to share with him.

"We're on vacation, dude," Brendon said. "Vacations should equal orgasms—that's in the fucking rulebook, I'm sure."

"You hate rules," Spencer said, trying to sound as lazily indifferent as he could. Inside he couldn't stop thinking about getting to do this again. With _Brendon_. He was pretty sure that Brendon would be able to hear the loud beat of his heart from over there. "You say that rules are meant to be broken." Brendon wasn't actually a rule-breaker. He just pretended like he was. Spencer did nothing to dispel his charade. He couldn't have, even if he'd wanted to. _Brendon. Orgasms_.

"Orgasm rules are totally different. So. Are you in? Vacation orgasms?"

"Sure." Spencer wriggled a little further down the bed, tugging the blankets up and over his head so that only his nose peeked out. This way Brendon wouldn't be able to see the way his hands were shaking.

"Okay, so," Brendon said, sounding only half-awake. "Orgasms are now on the to-do list."

"Awesome," Spencer said.

It took him a long time to fall asleep.

~*~.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So," Brendon said. "Do you still think vacation orgasms are a good idea?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional britpicking duties in this part carried out by the lovely hermette. Thank you ♥

~*~

"So," Brendon said, waking Spencer up the following morning by poking him in the side. "Do you still think vacation orgasms are a good idea?"

"Wha—" Spencer managed, blearily trying to blink his way up from sleep to something resembling being awake.

"Orgasms," Brendon said. "I'm just checking you haven't changed your mind."

"Fuck off," Spencer said, burying his face in the pillow. "Seriously, go back to sleep and leave me alone. No orgasms. Asleep."

"I'll blow you," Brendon suggested.

Spencer blinked open his eyes, and remembered where he was, and who he was with. "Um." He paused, tugging himself up to a sitting position. He was already half-hard, just from imagining Brendon with his mouth on his cock. He tried to remain nonchalant. "Okay?"

~*~

"So."

"Yeah," Brendon said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He was just back from the bathroom, and Spencer had endured a cheerful twenty seconds of having to listen to him spitting into the sink and running the faucet.

"Taste gone away now?"

"That was my first time, okay," Brendon protested. "I figured it would be just like getting one. I didn't expect—"

Spencer raised an eyebrow, and Brendon deflated, shoulders dropping.

"Okay, okay. That was pretty crappy."

"Come here and let me reciprocate, okay," Spencer said. His mouth was dry and his stomach rolled a little in anticipation, but whatever. Spencer was a-okay with his body and with having awesome sex and orgasms. Well. Sort of. Sometimes. Right now he felt like he was, so he was running with it. And vacation orgasms were the best kind of orgasms. Easy, no-strings attached vacation orgasms.

With each other.

Yeah, okay. Spencer was about to go down on Brendon and there was no way he could pretend it didn't mean anything, but he was going to give it his best shot. He just wanted it to be easy, he didn't want it to fuck anything up or screw with his head. He just wanted to have sex, and to enjoy it, and to not have to worry about what it meant for the whole fucking vacation. Whatever it meant, and whatever repercussions it might have, he wanted to just leave that to one side and get on with just having fun.

"It probably doesn't taste as bad as I made out," Brendon said awkwardly, but he wasn't saying no, which suggested that he was leaning towards _yes_.

Spencer rolled his eyes. "Get comfortable," he said.

"Aye, aye, sir," Brendon said, grinning, and that made Spencer feel more relaxed too. He tried to laugh, and managed it as he ran his fingers up Brendon's legs. "Fuck, it's cold. Can you blow me if I put the covers over your head?"

"No," Spencer said. "Put a hoodie on."

Brendon snorted. "This is the least sexy blowjob ever."

"Thanks," Spencer said dryly. He pulled his pants back up, because Brendon was right, and it _was_ cold.

"Get over here," Brendon said, wriggling into the center of the bed. He tugged his hoodie on over his head. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Fuck, we prepare less when we're getting ready for tour."

"And think how well _they_ go," Brendon told him, waggling his eyebrows and beckoning Spencer closer.

Spencer thought, _make it easy, make it easy, make it easy_. "They go really well."

"Exactly," Brendon said, and spread his legs. "Come on."

Okay, so that theoretically bisexual thing that Spencer had been fairly bad at practicing for all these years was becoming less theoretical and more—well, real. He couldn't hide the way his heart was beating like a drum—like a kick drum, with the kind of beat that made his leg ache after trying to keep it up for a whole song - and what he needed right now was a music metaphor, what the fuck. Fuck.

He stopped thinking about it, crawled into the vee of Brendon's legs, and went down on Brendon's dick.

Brendon tasted _amazing_. Fuck. He tasted warm and kind of sleepy and—he tasted like sex smelled, okay, and that was a weird simile but whatever, Spencer still couldn't quite believe that he wasn't asleep and dreaming this whole thing up with his brain. He tried to do what he liked having done to himself, which was mostly concentrating on the tip for a while before going down further. Brendon seemed to like it though, judging by the way he was babbling his appreciation and tangling his fingers into Spencer's hair, holding him close. Spencer curled his hand around the base of Brendon's dick.

Fuck, his jaw hurt. He found himself half wanting this to go on forever, and half wanting Brendon to come right the fuck now so that he could go somewhere and open and close his jaw for a while until the feeling came back. And he couldn't breathe.

He probably needed practice.

"Oh, fuck," Brendon said in a high, choked voice approximately eleven hours later. "Fuck, Spencer—I'm going to come."

Spencer briefly considered staying down and trying to swallow, but he pulled off instead, keeping a hold of Brendon's dick with his hand. Brendon's hips rocked up so that his dick brushed against Spencer's mouth, and then Brendon was coming with a cry, all over Spencer's mouth and his cheeks and his nose and his tongue.

Spencer, just for a moment, felt like the luckiest fucking guy in the whole fucking world.

Brendon sank down onto the sheets and covered his eyes with his arm. "Holy shit," he said, after a while. "Fuck, _fuck_."

"Good _fuck_?" Spencer asked, unable to help himself.

"Yeah, yep." Brendon said, shifting a little so that he could grin at Spencer from under his arm. "Fuck, that was hot. You have come on your face."

"Oh," Spencer said, as if he didn't know. "I'll just go and um—" he pointed at the bathroom. "Back in a minute."

In the bathroom, he stared into the mirror over the sink for a minute, at the come on his cheeks and his chin. It was, he thought dazedly, maybe the hottest thing anyone had ever done to him.

He bent down, turned on the faucet, and splashed water on his face, wiping himself clean.

~*~

Spencer found Brendon in the kitchen, in his oversized pajamas and a hoodie, frying bacon and making coffee.

"I would kill for pancakes right now," Brendon said, making room for Spencer in front of the stove so that they could share some of the warmth. "Pancakes and bacon and syrup."

Spencer made a face, and didn't say anything about how, five minutes earlier, Spencer had his mouth on Brendon's dick. "We don't have pancake mix," he said. "We have eggs, though. And bread. Do you think we have the stuff for French toast?"

"Probably not," Brendon said, and he elbowed Spencer in the ribs. "Go see if there's a cookbook on the bookshelf, then we can make a list and go to the store."

"You've gone all domesticated," Spencer grumbled, flipping the switch on the boiler on the way past towards the living room so that the central heating went on. Kneeling on the floor by the bookshelf, he found an old, battered St. Michael cookbook that looked like it was from the eighties, squashed in between _Teach Yourself Chess_ and _How To Make The Most Of Your Evenings_ , which appeared to be a list of ways people who didn't have the internet could entertain themselves.

"Maybe it's being married to you," Brendon said flippantly, sticking his head around the living room door. "Have you found anything?"

"Yeah," Spencer said, and he showed Brendon the _How To Make The Most Of Your Evenings_ book. "Want to try this later?"

"Does it have a chapter on orgasms?" Brendon said, glancing at Spencer with an almost-awkward smile. "We could work through that."

"We should do that anyway," Spencer said, deliberately staring at the book and not at Brendon. "But it's got other stuff we can try. Seeing as the internet won't work." The laminated instructions still hadn't actually ended in the internet, and Spencer was beginning to think what they really needed from this vacation was a break from everything, so he was trying not to mind that he hadn't checked his email in days.

"Awesome," Brendon said. "Come on, I think the bacon's almost done. Do you want toast?"

"Always."

They ate breakfast in companionablesilence in the kitchen, Brendon flicking through the cookbook and making disgusted faces at the recipe for coronation chicken, and Spencer trying to decide which of the suggestions they should use first to fill their evening in a profitable and engrossing way. He skipped past the papercraft section in favor of reading the traditional games chapter. He was half-convinced they should stay in today and play charades. The weather outside was gross and cold, and the clouds were so thick and low that it was practically dark anyway. It looked a lot like rain.

"You want to stay in today?" Spencer suggested, without looking up from his book. "There are movies in the other room. And it's freezing out."

"Yep," Brendon agreed. "Or maybe we can just go to the store later on so we can cook. There are some cool recipes in here. But not coronation chicken."

"Who puts mayonnaise and raisins and chicken together?" Spencer asked, brow furrowed. It sounded disgusting. "But yeah, that sounds good. Let's do that."

He didn't think about orgasms, and shared orgasms, and what Brendon had tasted like on his tongue.

It was weird, having an actual VCR. He hadn't watched a video in years, so going through the shelves and deciding to watch _Die Hard 2_ was kind of cool, in a retro kind of way. He put it in the machine.

"Listen to that," Brendon said in wonder, from where he was kneeling on the floor and trying to figure out how to lay a fire. "I'd forgotten rewinding could sound like that."

"It sounds like an airplane taking off," Spencer cocked his head at the VCR. "It better not break on us. Can you even buy VCRs any more?"

"I don't know," Brendon said. He sounded distracted, which was probably only to be expected when he was trying to read the laminated _how to lay a fire_ instructions at the same time as upending a bag of kindling onto the grate. "Do you think I should have cleared away the ash first?"

"Probably," Spencer said, disappearing into the kitchen for cans of Coke Zero and a tube of Pringles. If they were going to spend a day in the cottage at Christmas, the least they could do was attack it with gusto. "It leans to one side, though. You know that, right?"

Brendon showed him the finger. "Fuck you," he said, rolling his eyes. "You lay the stupid fire."

"No, no," Spencer told him, sinking down comfortably onto the couch and lazily crossing his legs. "It's much more fun watching you screw it up."

"You're such a catch," Brendon grumbled, screwing up a few extra sheets of newspaper and stuffing them into the gaps in the kindling, then dumping a couple of logs on top. "I'm calling that done. Can you see the matches?"

"On the mantel," Spencer pointed. "Hurry up, I want to start the movie."

"What did your last slave die of?" Brendon said, watching as his match caught at the newspaper and then the kindling. "Ha! Fire. I made fire."

"Well done," Spencer told him, rolling his eyes. He was pretty impressed though, he wasn't sure he'd ever managed to lay a fire. Admittedly the laminated instructions had done most of the work. He shifted so there was space on the couch next to him for Brendon.

"Got to wash my hands," Brendon said, holding his hands up. He disappeared into the kitchen, coming back a minute later and taking up two thirds of the couch. "I am the king of fires. Bow down before me, Spence. I'm the king."

"You sure are," Spencer said. "Can we start the movie now?"

Brendon rolled his eyes. "Rush, rush, rush. Sit back and revel in my awesome fire. And how awesome I am. Mostly the last part."

"Dick," Spencer said fondly, reaching for the remote. "Come on, let's watch Bruce Willis blow shit up."

"Tis the season," Brendon said, elbowing him. "Come on, then. Fast forward through the trailers. It'll be like being in the twentieth century again."

It was half way through the movie when Spencer had built up the courage to say what he wanted to say. "So," he said, as Bruce Willis got steadily more bloody and more grimy and shot some more stuff. "This orgasm thing."

Brendon perked up. "Yep?"

"I've been thinking," Spencer said. He had been thinking. He'd been thinking about nothing else for the last forty-five minutes, and it had to be something important for his attention to be swayed from blood and shooting. He'd been thinking about the way orgasms _were_ awesome, and how he'd like to have more of them, and if they were going to have awesome orgasms together during this vacation, why not do _more_.

"Uh-huh," Brendon said.

"I've been thinking, and if we're agreed that what happens on vacation stays on vacation—" he shrugged, "—I've been thinking and I think we should do more than just share orgasms."

"Like what?"

Spencer didn't want to say, _more intimate things_ , because, to be honest, having your dick in someone's mouth was kind of intimate, all things considered. "Making out," he said. "Making out is awesome foreplay. Foreplay is awesome, actually. I'm thinking that there should be foreplay." The fire was making the room really hot, and sweat beaded on his brow. He blamed Brendon for putting too many logs on the fire. His stomach tipped over, and okay, he knew that there was maybe an obvious answer for the way he felt right now, but he really, really didn't want to think about that too much. Brendon was his best friend, and the only remaining member of his band. If he thought too much about the ways that the two of them could fuck up everything they had going for them then he was going to throw up. Or back out on their vacation orgasm agreement, and if he was honest, Spencer really didn't want to back out on that.

"Huh," Brendon said, which wasn't all that helpful. Spencer swirled the Coke Zero in the bottom of his can and looked down at his socks. One black sock was a lot more faded than the other; clearly they weren't a pair. "What happens on vacation stays on vacation?"

"Definitely," Spencer said, even though he wasn't entirely sure that he could ensure that whatever he was feeling would stay in Wales when they were back in LA. Maybe it was just the fault of their vacation? Maybe being stuck on a romantic vacation in a tiny stone cottage on the west coast of Wales, with no internet and people thinking they were married had led to this weird mind-fuck of an arrangement, and when they got back on the road to Heathrow, Spencer would come to his senses and remember that Brendon was his best friend and nothing more. _Fuck it_ , he thought. Whatever the fuck happened on vacation was going to be awesome, and then they were going to go back to normal when they got back to LA.

"So," Brendon said, tapping his fingers against the knee of his pajama pants. Neither of them had bothered to get dressed. "You want to start now?"

"With the foreplay?" Spencer said stupidly.

"With the making out, I was thinking," Brendon said. "May as well."

"The movie—" Spencer said, before he realized what he was saying. "Wow, look at this. The remote has a pause button."

"That's amazing," Brendon agreed, drawing his knee up to his chest. "You should test that button out. Don't you think?"

Spencer paused the movie, dropped the remote down onto the coffee table with a clatter, and shifted on the couch so that he was facing Brendon. "Okay," he said, since all of a sudden he felt kind of breathless and awkward and a lot like this moment should be significant. He ignored it in favor of concentrating on how this was a vacation thing and unimportant overall. _Just a momentary thing_ , he told himself, but even he couldn't believe that. All he could hope for was that Brendon didn't realize how Spencer was feeling, and then he could figure out how to deal with the rest of it at some point later.

"Awesome," Brendon said, and then he curled his fingers into the short hair at the nape of Spencer's neck, and stroked. "I sucked you off, so this part shouldn't be hard."

"Right," Spencer agreed, but he couldn't stop staring at Brendon's mouth.

Brendon's gaze flicked to Spencer's mouth, and back up again, and then he smiled hesitantly. "To infinity and beyond," he said, and then he leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of Spencer's mouth.

Spencer waited a moment before chasing it, and then they exchanged awkward, chaste kisses as Brendon stroked at the back of Spencer's neck, fingers in his hair. Spencer, who found that he couldn't stay still when Brendon was sneaking kiss after kiss, slid his hand up to the curve of Brendon's jaw, and touched at his skin, drawing him closer. He felt almost dizzy with expectation. He nipped at Brendon's lip with his teeth, and felt Brendon's appreciation in the tightening of his fingertips in Spencer's hair. He groaned, and deepened the kiss.

They'd been friends for such a long time, but they'd never done this before. This was new. This was good. This was _great_. He kissed him again, and let Brendon kiss him back, murmuring his appreciation against Brendon's mouth.

"Best idea, Spence," Brendon told him after a while. His mouth was red and well-kissed; Spencer felt an odd pride at knowing he was the one who'd made him flushed and breathless. "Best fucking idea."

"Right?" Spencer agreed, clearing his throat. He shifted so that he was lying down on the couch, his head against the cushions by the arm. He gave Brendon a defiant look. "It's more comfortable like this.

"You have the best ideas," Brendon agreed, shuffling so that he could slide down next to Spencer. He wrapped an arm around Spencer's waist, tugging him flush against Brendon's dick. He was half-hard, like Spencer was, but even the press of his dick against Spencer's thigh wasn't enough to shift the urgency of their making out up a gear. Brendon tilted his chin up and kissed Spencer again.

Spencer wasn't sure how long they made out for, but by the time they came up for air, Brendon looked thoroughly well kissed, his hair mussed up and his cheeks pink. His hoodie was half-pushed up and Spencer's hand was in the hot small of his back, and Spencer was sure he looked just as ravaged as Brendon did.

Brendon coughed, and then he grinned, leaning down and resting his cheek against Spencer's shoulder. "This is going to be the best vacation ever," he said, wrapping his arm around Spencer's chest for a moment, before sliding his hand down inside Spencer's pajama pants. He wrapped his hand around Spencer's hard cock and jerked it lazily.

Spencer couldn't help the way his heart skipped a beat. "Fuck," he managed, eloquent to the last.

"You can do me after," Brendon told him.

"How about I do you now?" Spencer suggested, since he needed something to do with his hands. Spencer felt wrecked, and he could feel all of those thoughts he wasn't letting himself think about bubbling up inside of him, vying for attention. He stuffed them all down and concentrated on sliding his hand down inside Brendon's pajama pants and rubbing his thumb over the tip of Brendon's cock.

"Awesome idea," Brendon told him breathlessly, rocking his hips up and into Spencer's fist. The elastic of his pants worried against Spencer's wrist; this was uncomfortable.

"Let me—" Spencer said eloquently, rolling Brendon on top of him so that he could shrug down Brendon's pajama pants to mid-thigh, and then fumbling with his own pants. The first touch of his dick to Brendon's was electric, in the best way possible. His skin tingled with anticipation and the heat of attraction and desire. For _Brendon_. Everything was back to front and upside down and all he wanted was _more_. He kissed Brendon again, just because he could. Brendon's dick was so soft to the touch, and so hot, and he couldn't help but run his thumb over and over the slit. It made Brendon whimper breathlessly against Spencer's mouth, and then they were kissing again, over and over again as they jerked each other off.

"Feels so good," Brendon told him, in between kisses, and Spencer's mouth felt swollen and well-kissed. He hadn't just made out with someone in _forever_ , and he'd never had to try and figure out making out at the same time as jerking someone else's dick. Just managing to succeed at both was faintly amazing, especially when Brendon slid his tongue over Spencer's, deceptively lazily. It made Spencer's stomach flip-flop, and he kissed back harder, rocking his hips up and into Brendon's fist, which was gripping him hard. Spencer fucking loved a tight grip. He'd tell Brendon that at some point, when he wasn't convinced that if he tried to speak he'd forget how to talk.

"Uh-huh," he managed a while later, shifting their positions a little so that his wrist didn't feel like it was about to give out. "Gonna come," he told Brendon, astonished to find how true that was. He was so close to the edge. He felt like he was on fire. "Brendon, Brendon—"

"So hot," Brendon told him, still jerking him off hard and fast. Spencer's grip was loose on Brendon's dick, his rhythm slowing as his own orgasm built; when he started to come it felt like a freight train rushing through him, and he cried out, hips rocking.

He slumped back on the couch, and when he opened his eyes, Brendon was kneeling over him, dick in hand, jerking off over Spencer's chest. Spencer didn't even remember letting go of Brendon's erection.

"Sorry," Spencer mumbled, his heart still going like a jackhammer. He tried to reach for Brendon's dick, but Brendon just shook his head, jerking himself faster and faster.

"Almost there," he said, biting his lip, his hand going so fast it looked like a blur. "Fuck, so close."

Spencer ran his hands up Brendon's thighs, from where his pajama pants stretched between his legs, up to the pale, warm skin in the curve of his hips. When he touched Brendon's balls, Brendon started to come, loud and messy. It hit Spencer's chest in streaks, and Brendon's chin dropped down onto his chest.

"Fuck," Brendon said, awkwardly pulling up his pants over his dick.

"Hot," Spencer said. He tugged at the heart-shaped blanket draped over the back of the couch, pulling it down and over the two of them, trying to shrug up his pants at the same time.

"A worthy addition to our vacation plans," Brendon agreed, shifting so that he was lying along the back of the couch, cheek pillowed on Spencer's pajama-clad chest. He tidied up the blanket so that it was covering them both a little better; Spencer could still feel Brendon's dick pressed up against his hip.

"Yep," Spencer said, leaning over and pressing play on the VCR remote. He steadied himself with a hand to Brendon's hip, and willed himself to stay quiet, and unmoving. Inside, he felt like he was in turmoil, like all of these feelings he'd had about Brendon for so fucking long, longer than Spencer had given himself credit for, what the fuck, they'd all suddenly arrived in his brain at the same time. They were all vying for attention, threatening to erupt, and all he could hear was _Brendon BrendonBrendonBrendon_ , and quieter, _there's no way you can pretend this means nothing_.

Spencer knew _that_ , at least.

He stared at the movie and didn't take in a word.

~*~


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you want to take this upstairs?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta and cheerleading for this part entirely down to hermette. Thank you, bb!

~*~

Spencer didn't know how much later it was when he felt Brendon shift on the couch next to him. Die Hard was still on the TV, but Spencer hadn't been able to pay it that much attention since he'd come in Brendon's fist and felt his whole world quick turn upside down. It was all he could do to stay still and not tremble; he was halfway to being in love, and the person he was almost in love with was _Brendon_. Brendon, who he'd known since he was sixteen, whose entire repertoire of gross and disgusting habits was etched onto Spencer's brain, alongside a sliding scale of things he never wanted to ever have to think about again, like Brendon cutting his toenails on the bus and leaving the clippings right there on the carpet for him to walk over in bare feet.

Instead, all he could think about was Brendon, and what this meant, and what the hell he was supposed to do when he got back to LA and had to get used to a world where this didn't happen anymore, where vacation orgasms were a thing of the past, and they were just them again. He wasn't normally one for the kind of introspection he'd been subjecting himself to on this trip, but he couldn't help it—he couldn't help but wonder if by starting this thing, he was risking more than he was willing to lose.

"Hey," Brendon said, sliding his finger inside the collar of Spencer's sleep shirt and following it with his mouth, dragging his tongue up the length of Spencer's neck. "Hey."

"Hey," Spencer managed, twisting a little so that he could meet Brendon's mouth in a kiss. Brendon murmured his appreciation against Spencer's lips, curling his fingers into Spencer's hair, and drawing him closer in. Spencer let himself be kissed, and he didn't think about his concerns about whether this was the right thing or not; it felt right, and they were on vacation, and sex could absolutely happen without feelings being drawn into it. Feelings beyond actual friendly affection, that is.

If only Spencer wasn't pretty fucking sure he was falling in love, and mostly convinced that he was going to continue falling, even if they put a stop to no-strings attached vacation orgasms.

He let himself be kissed, sliding a hand into the small of Brendon's back, pulling him nearer. He could feel Brendon's dick pressed up against his thigh; he'd come earlier, which should have meant that he was about ready for an orgasm break, but he must have forgotten to send his dick the memo. He was half-hard again, and wanting more.

Groaning, he slid his hand in between them, cupping Brendon's dick through his pajama pants. He could feel Brendon stiffening again, and Brendon whined into his mouth.

"Fuck, yeah," Brendon said. Then he shifted again, so he was kneeling over Spencer, hand pressed to Spencer's dick. "Do you want to take this upstairs?"

"Yes," Spencer said, without even giving himself a moment to think. He pushed at Brendon's chest. "Get off, come on."

Brendon laughed. "Yeah, baby," he said. "I like it when you tell it like it is."

"Always," Spencer said, and he knew he was talking crap, but whatever.

Brendon jumped to his feet and offered Spencer a hand up; then they were taking the stairs two at a time and pushing their way into the bedroom, and dropping their clothes onto the floor before tumbling into bed.

"So," Spencer said a moment later, when they were laying side by side under the covers, completely naked. "This is weird."

"Hmmm," Brendon said. "I think I've had weirder moments. Remember when you told the lady that we were married and we had to pretend to be honeymooners to the people who owned the vacation cottage? That was weird."

"Shut up," Spencer said, elbowing Brendon in the side. He rolled over, propping himself up on his elbow. "That was a perfectly reasonable mistake. I was drunk."

"The best kind," Brendon said wisely. He leaned over and ran a finger down the center of Spencer's chest. "So. Is this the part where we have sex?"

Spencer swallowed. His mouth felt kind of dry. "Yeah," he said. "I think so."

"Okay," Brendon said. "Do you want to take it turns to fuck each other, or what?"

Spencer snorted a laugh. "Oh fuck," he said. "What the fuck are we doing?"

"Making an awesome holiday extra awesome, I think," Brendon said, considering. "So. Rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock?"

Spencer couldn't help it; he rolled closer and covered Brendon's mouth with his own, splaying his fingers across Brendon's chest. Brendon groaned, and rolled onto his side, sliding his knee in between Spencer's. Spencer rocked his hips up against Brendon's, and there was Brendon's dick, pressed up against his and really fucking hard. "Too many options," he said, in between kisses. "Take it down a level. Rock-paper-scissors."

"Okay," Brendon said, taking Spencer's bottom lip in his teeth. "One, two, three—"

"That's the Vulcan sign," Spencer said, rolling his eyes. "You're not even trying."

"Fuck me," Brendon said. "Fuck me first, and then we can scoop my brain up from the floor and figure out when I get to fuck you later."

Spencer took a moment to burrow his face into the pillow. "Fuck," he said. "I don't suppose you've got any condoms lying around, do you?"

Brendon closed his eyes. "This is not a good time for us to have to drive to the store," he said, rocking his dick up against Spencer's thigh before rolling over and standing up. "I think I have one in my wallet. Pretty sure it's a novelty one, though."

"What kind of novelty?" Spencer asked suspiciously, stretching out across the bed and watching as Brendon rummaged in his open suitcase for his wallet and—hopefully— a condom.

"Awesome," Brendon said brightly, standing up and brandishing a condom. "It's both glow in the dark _and_ banana flavored."

"My dick is going to glow in the dark," Spencer said.

"Abso-fucking-lutely," Brendon said, launching himself at the bed. "Now let me put it on for you." He paused, before taking off for the bathroom, and coming back with their super fucking expensive coconut-scented conditioner. "We can go out for lube later, but until then—"

"My dick's going to glow in the dark, taste like banana, and smell like coconut," Spencer said.

"And you're going to put it in my ass. What's not to like?"

Put like that, Spencer thought, who was he to argue? "Get over here," he said, and Brendon did, launching himself at the bed with a loud _woohoo_. He clambered over Spencer, knees either side of him, and leaned down to slide his fingers into Spencer's hair, and cover Spencer's mouth with his own. "This is going to be so great, Spence," he said. "The best no-strings vacation orgasms ever. Right?"

"Right," Spencer said weakly, and he took the condom from Brendon and tore off the corner with his teeth. "You know I've never done this, right?"

"Me neither," Brendon said. "But how hard can it be? I've seen really stupid people manage it in porn."

Spencer rolled his eyes, and didn't think about Brendon watching porn. "Hard," he said, and Brendon snorted.

"Hurr-hurr," Brendon said, and he laughed. "Give that to me, I want to put it on you."

"Okay," Spencer said, and he slid his hands down Brendon's sides until they rested on his hips. As Brendon slowly rolled the condom down Spencer's dick, Spencer let out a low groan, and shifted his head on the pillow, chin tilted up. "Fuck."

"Now it's time for fingering," Brendon said, more matter of factly than Spencer thought himself capable for, if he was being honest. "You want me to do it, or you?"

"Holy shit," Spencer managed, at the thought of Brendon with his fingers in his ass. "You first. Then me."

Brendon ducked in to press another kiss to Spencer's mouth before squeezing coconut conditioner onto his hand. He kissed Spencer again, letting Spencer take over the lead as he clearly started to finger himself open, ready for Spencer's dick.

Spencer couldn't help it; he slid a hand down Brendon's back and into the dip between his ass cheeks. He met Brendon's hand there, and bumped his fingers into Brendon's, feeling Brendon's mewl of appreciation against his mouth as they kissed.

"Fuck," Spencer managed, because Brendon was fucking himself on his fingers, and he was too expert at it to be new to this. It was so hot, feeling Brendon finger himself while Spencer got to kiss him over and over, and Spencer was led to wonder what might happen if they went on like this, and didn't get to the fucking part. He could come from just this, given time enough, he knew.

"Oh," Brendon breathed, shifting position. "Oh, Spence."

"Let me," Spencer said, curling his fingers around Brendon's. "Please, let me." There was enough coconut conditioner already that Spencer could collect it with his fingertips and smooth it over Brendon's hole. He found himself wanting to _see_. "Fuck, lie down," he said, rolling out from under Brendon. "Lie on your front. I want to see."

Brendon complied easily, wiping his conditioner-slick fingers on Spencer's thigh as he shifted.

"Asshole," Spencer said, shifting so that he was kneeling over Brendon this time. Brendon spread his legs, and Spencer let out a stifled breath as he got to see Brendon's slick, pink hole. "Fuck," he said again, and ran the tip of one finger hesitantly around it, and then again, and again. Brendon shivered, a whole body shiver, and Spencer touched him again, two fingers this time. He slid the tip of one finger inside of Brendon, and fuck, it was so hot and seemed so dirty that Spencer could barely keep a hold of his own heated desperation. He just kept on touching, because Brendon was laid out in front of him, breathing loudly into the pillow with his legs apart, for _Spencer_ , and Spencer was totally fucked.

"More," Brendon begged, rocking his hips down against the sheets. "Please, Spence. More."

Spencer complied, sliding the tip of his second finger in alongside the first, and Brendon whined, coming back up onto his knees so he could reach a hand in front of him and grab his dick.

Brendon on his hands and knees was almost too much for Spencer. "Fuck," he managed succinctly, and then Spencer was grabbing his own novelty-condom-clad dick, and lining it up against Brendon's hole.

"More lube," Brendon said breathlessly, before Spencer even tried to push inside, and Spencer squeezed a handful onto his palm and slid it down over his cock. He was so hard, and he was going to fuck Brendon— _Brendon_ —and he wasn't going to last at all, he just knew it. He knew what they were doing was crazy, and what this was going to do to his head and his heart after all this was done was just one fucking step too far, but Spencer felt like he was on a fairground ride that wasn't stopping any time soon. He was lost.

He curled his fingers around Brendon's hip, and pushed inside.

"Jesus _Christ_ ," Brendon swore, but he sounded breathless and desperate, and when he pushed back against Spencer's dick, he begged for more. He was still jerking himself off and Spencer kept a hold of Brendon's hip to center him, to help him focus as he rolled his hips up and his dick further inside. "Fuck, that feels good. Don't stop, Spence. Don't stop."

"Brendon," Spencer groaned. "Fuck." It felt incredible. He felt like he was doing the right thing, like _this_ was the extension of their relationship he'd never known that he'd wanted before this vacation. He fucked him, and Brendon jerked himself off, and Spencer thought, _I think I'm falling in love with you, and that isn't a bad thing_. For a moment, while he was sweating and trying to remember how to breathe, he let himself believe that this could be the beginning of something bigger, that it wasn't just these few days in the middle of nowhere that spelled the end of everything else.

"Fuck," Brendon managed, his hand a blur on his dick. "Fuck, we're doing this again. All fucking vacation."

"Right?" Spencer said, still fucking Brendon's ass. "You're so hot, Brendon." He hadn't meant to tell Brendon he was hot—that sounded a little too far from the no-strings vacation orgasms they'd agreed to. He tried to fix it, but he was too far gone. "This is so hot. Fucking." Fuck, what did he sound like? What he wanted to say was _you're so fucking hot, and this is amazing, and I'm falling for you_. "Your ass," is what he said, which seemed like a reasonable alternative.

"Your _dick_ ," Brendon said, in wonder. "Gonna come, Spence. Can't—going to come."

"Yeah," Spencer said. "Please. Come." He wouldn't be far behind, he knew. He couldn't be—this was sex. With Brendon. He had his dick in Brendon's ass, and not even the fact that he was wearing a neon, novelty condom was enough to lessen the experience.

When Brendon started to come, Spencer felt it in the jerky, desperate tightening of Brendon's muscles around his dick, and Spencer knew he couldn't last. The sounds Brendon was making, the desperate panting, the words that were barely words; hearing Brendon that incoherent was enough to tip Spencer over the edge. He followed Brendon's orgasm with his own, head tipped back and throat bared.

Afterwards, when he slid his dick out of Brendon's ass, sitting back on his heels so that he could take off the condom and tie it in a knot, his hands were hot and shaking. His orgasm still felt like it was pulsing through him, desperate and hard. He trembled.

Brendon grabbed his hand and pulled him down on to the sheets, waiting while he dropped the condom off the edge of the bed and into the trash can.

"Wow," he said. He made a face. "My ass feels weird."

Spencer snorted, and hid his face in the pillows. "Okay," he said, laughing.

"In a good way," Brendon told him. "In case you were thinking that the giant fucking orgasm I just had meant I didn't have a good time."

"Glad you clarified," Spencer said. His tongue felt thick in his mouth, and every muscle in his body felt like liquid; he didn't think he could have moved even if he'd wanted to. He sprawled face first on the sheets, and tried to ignore the gradually encumbering chill. It was, despite his wishing otherwise, still the middle of winter in Wales. "Blankets," he said, waving his hand in the air in what he hoped was a universal sign for _pull them up, Brendon, make me warm_.

Brendon kissed him on the shoulder. "I'm the one who just got fucked, Spence. I'm pretty sure you should be giving me a massage, or something."

"Blankets," Spencer said again. "Fucking is tiring."

"I wouldn't know," Brendon said, rolling his eyes and tugging the blankets up and over them. He made a big deal about making sure Spencer's shoulders were covered. "Which is code for, let me do it to you next time."

"Code accepted and understood," Spencer said, all without opening his eyes.

"You're just going to fall right asleep, aren't you," Brendon complained, poking him in the side. "At least make out with me for a while."

"Aren't you sleepy?" Spencer said. He was sleepy. He'd just a brainfuck of an orgasm, and what he really needed to do was close his eyes and wait until he had full control of all his limbs again. And then they could do it all again.

Brendon plastered himself to Spencer's side. "There's a wet patch," he said, by way of an explanation. "I can't be bothered to go get a towel to cover it up. Move over."

"We need to wash the sheets before we leave," Spencer said, drowsily. "I don't want to think about Mary and Dave washing the come out of our sheets."

"Make out with me," Brendon said, nudging closer and bumping Spencer's nose with his own. "Please, Spence."

Spencer groaned, low down in his throat, and then he let himself be kissed, Brendon's mouth against his, breath warm. Brendon's hand snaked around the back of his neck, drawing him in, and Spencer let himself go, eyes closed as Brendon sneaked his tongue inside Spencer's mouth. He was so sure that this should have at least felt weird to him, or at least unfamiliar, but it just felt like a natural extension of their relationship. That was how Spencer knew he was totally fucked.

Brendon slid his knee in between Spencer's. "Fuck, I could kiss you all day," he said, in between kisses, and Spencer made some kind of piteous mewl in the back of his throat that he was pretty sure he'd feel ashamed of at some point that wasn't now. Instead, he just kissed Brendon back, over and over, until his skin felt hot and he could feel Brendon's soft dick against his thigh, and all he could think was _I want this, I want this, I want this_.

"Yeah, baby," Brendon said, with a grin, shifting so that he was kneeling over Spencer, and drawing the sheets up over his shoulders so that they were still warm.

They made out for a long time, until Spencer's mouth felt kind of swollen and numb, and his dick was making half-hearted attempts to get hard again. His recovery rate was pretty good under normal circumstances, but that had been one hell of an orgasm, and he'd never fucked anyone like that before, and it was _Brendon_ , who it turned out he was more than half in love with. All of those things together made for awesome sex, but a longer recovery rate. Brendon was sleepy and lazy in his arms, kissing him soft and long, the kind of kisses that were more about sharing breath and failing to pull away than they were about actually getting off.

And then they were interrupted by someone ringing the doorbell.

Spencer sat up so fast he bumped his head against Brendon's chin.

"Fuck," he said, holding his head. "Was that the door?"

"Sounded like it," Brendon said, rolling off him and reaching over the edge of the bed for his pajama pants. "Those are yours, you go."

"Okay, okay," Spencer said, pulling on his pants and reaching for his sweater. He wondered how completely obvious it was going to be that a) they'd just had sex and b) they'd been in bed.

Pretty much entirely obvious, he concluded, once he'd sent a giggling, winking Mary on her way and bumped into Brendon on the way up the stairs.

"Mary sends her love," Spencer told him, red-faced. "She called us happy honeymooners and winked."

Brendon snorted. "I heard that part," he said. "Why did she come over?"

"To bring us eggs," Spencer said, holding up an egg box, and then pressing it into Brendon's hands. "And to invite us to come over and have tea with them before we leave next week." He was so embarrassed. She'd known immediately that they'd been in bed; she'd glanced up the stairs and gone pink and giggled. And then asked if Brendon was still in bed, to which Spencer could only answer a red-faced _yes_. He screwed his face up, before covering it with his hands. "It's possible to die of embarrassment, right?"

"Spencer," Brendon said, clearly trying to be gentle in between snorting with laughter. "We're a honeymooning couple. If we didn't spend every last minute in bed together, we'd be _weird_. They _expect_ us to be having sex every fifth minute."

"There's that," Spencer said, from behind his hands. "Fuck, that was like being discovered in bed by my parents. You're going to answer the door next time."

"Next time, huh," Brendon said, and he leaned in and peeled Spencer's hands away from his eyes. Brendon's mouth was red and clearly well-kissed; Spencer could only imagine what he looked like. "Okay. Deal." He kissed Spencer quickly. "Do you want eggs? I'm hungry."

Spencer's stomach rumbled. Even embarrassed about Mary—complete in sensible rain coat and umbrella, grinning around her flushed cheeks, waggling her eyebrows because she was as aware as Spencer was that she'd interrupted them in bed—he couldn't hide how hungry he suddenly was.

"Fuck," he said. "I'm hungry. It's the embarrassment. It means you have to cook for me. It's scientific fact."

"Scientific fact, huh," Brendon said, curling his fingers into the hair in the nape of Spencer's neck. "What do I get in return?"

Spencer tried to ignore the frantic beating of his heart in his chest. "You get to fuck me," he said.

Brendon's hand tightened in his hair. "Oh yeah?" he said, deceptively lightly. A muscle pulsed in his cheek.

"Yeah," Spencer said, and he bit his lip. "You get to fuck me."

"Yeah," Brendon echoed, and leaned in for another kiss. "Those are the kind of scientific facts I can get behind."

"Eggs," Spencer said, as Brendon kissed him again, pushing him back against the wall.

Brendon grinned against his mouth. "Quicker we eat, quicker we can get upstairs and I can take your clothes off again."

"Well," Spencer said, pulling away. He grabbed Brendon by the hand, laughing as he pulled him down the stairs and into the kitchen. "In that case, we need to eat right the fuck now."

"Totally fucking agreed," Brendon said, and pulled open the fridge. "Get your ass down and await a _feast_."

Spencer's gaze dropped to Brendon's ass. "Yeah," he said, and grinned. "Okay."

~*~


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So," Brendon said. "How do you want to do this?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta by the lovely hermette. Thank you <3

~*~

"So," Brendon said, once they were back in the bedroom after their eggs, and Spencer was spending some quality time lining things up in his drawers rather than taking his pajamas off. "How do you want to do this?"

Spencer tried to laugh. "The way I know it, you put your dick in my ass, and then we come."

Brendon rolled his eyes, and slapped Spencer's thigh, circling his hand around Spencer's leg to draw him closer to the bed. "Joker," he said. "I mean it. It's your first time. Let's figure this shit out."

"It's your first time too," Spencer said, trying—and failing—not to sound sulky. He didn't like not being able to do something, and he didn't much like being inexperienced, and he was halfway to being in love with Brendon, and shit was getting turned upside down. 

Brendon shrugged. "Stop getting all Spencer-y," he said. "I fucking know you, dickhead. Suck it up and admit you don't have a fucking clue what you're doing, and then we can fast-forward to the part where there are orgasms."

Spencer waited a beat before letting out a breath. "Okay, fine, I admit it. I don't have a fucking clue, and I'm kind of freaked out about stuff going in my ass. Okay?"

"All you needed to say, dude," Brendon said. "You want to shower first?"

"Yes," Spencer said, without even letting himself think about it. A respite—any respite—just to give him two minutes to try and get himself under control sounded like the best plan. He was half-terrified that having Brendon's dick in his ass was going to hurt like a motherfucker, and half-scared he was going to come before Brendon was even inside him.

"Okay," Brendon said. "Go shower, then I'll shower, then there can be clean fucking."

Spencer buried his face in his hands. "Okay," he said, and then he grabbed his towel from the hook on the door and disappeared into the bathroom. 

The shower was pretty crappy, in that the water pressure felt more like a gentle stream than an actual shower, but at least that meant Spencer could hear when Brendon came in and sat down on the closed lid of the toilet. 

"So, we can do it with you on your hands and knees, or you could be on your back with your knees up. That's basically how I've seen people do it in porn."

Spencer ducked his head out of the spray and blinked away the water. "You watch gay porn?"

There was a pause. "Like you don't," Brendon said. "Why didn't you tell me you were bisexual?"

"Why didn't _you_?" Spencer shot back. He relented after a moment. "I don't know," he said. "I told Mom and Ryan when I was about fifteen. It all seemed pretty theoretical. You're the, uh. First time it hasn't been strictly theoretical."

"Oh," Brendon said, and hummed. "Can I get in the shower with you?"

Spencer waited a moment before saying anything. His brain felt a little bit like it was running on overdrive. "Yeah," he said, finally. "Come on."

"Awesome," Brendon said, stripping away his clothes and climbing over the side of the tub and under the spray. "Hi."

"Hi," Spencer said, and he smiled, Brendon's answering smile meeting his. Brendon wrapped an arm around Spencer's back, and stepped closer. 

"I have had three blow jobs," Brendon said, "and one failed make out session, and that has been the sum total of my bisexual life experience." He shrugged. "Oh, and one awesome guy fucked the life out of me."

"If that was anyone else but me, I'm going to punch them in the face," Spencer said without thinking, but Brendon just laughed, and straightened up so he could smooth Spencer's hair away from his face and kiss him again. 

"I was talking about you," Brendon confided, mouth pressed to Spencer's. "Are you done freaking out?"

 _I'm in love with you_ , Spencer thought softly, and tried not to think too much about the other two blow jobs that hadn't been his. "Yeah," he lied and ran his fingers up and down Brendon's back. 

"Okay." Brendon slid his fingertips into the crease of Spencer's ass and over his hole. He circled his fingers slowly, until Spencer gulped back a breath and tipped his head back so that it hit the tiles. 

"Fucking _hell_ ," Spencer managed, as Brendon slid the tip of one finger inside, and then out again. 

"That's my boy." Brendon grinned, his other hand splayed across Spencer's chest, fingertips over Spencer's heart. He ducked his head and pressed a kiss to Spencer's sternum. "Turn around and I'll finger you for real."

Spencer blinked away the water from his eyes, and nodded jerkily. "Okay," he said. He turned around so that he was facing the wall, and just to steady himself, he put the flat of his hand against the water-slick tiles. 

Brendon wrapped an arm around Spencer's chest and pressed his mouth to Spencer's spine, his fingertips still stroking over Spencer's hole. "You ready?" he asked, over the gentle pound of the water, and Spencer nodded, taking a breath as Brendon slid his fingertip inside of him. 

"Holy fuck," Spencer managed, since it was kind of dirty and weird, in a good way, to be turned away from someone during the run up to sex. He'd only ever had sex with girls before this week, and he'd always been facing them. Turning away was such an odd thing to focus on, he knew, but he felt opened up and strangely vulnerable, and that wasn't something he was used to. Especially when the tip of Brendon's second finger joined his first, and Spencer whined without even realizing, and slid his legs further apart so that Brendon could get a better angle. 

"Right?" Brendon agreed, dropping another kiss to Spencer's shoulder. "Fuck, you feel so good, Spence. It's like—fuck, if this is what it's going to feel like to have my dick in you then I'm going to come before we even get going."

Spencer snorted, unable to help himself. "I thought I was going to come too," he admitted, both hands on the wall now, the tiles slick and cold beneath his palms. He tipped his head back, into the spray. "You were so fucking tight, Brendon. It was so hot and so tight and fuck, it's your _ass_. I thought I was going to come right there."

"Yeah," Brendon said, ghosting his tongue over Spencer's spine. His fingers fucked into Spencer slowly, oh-so slowly, and Spencer could barely remember how to breathe. "Fuck, are you done? Are you clean? Can we get out?"

"Yeah," Spencer said, nodding already. He twisted back on to Brendon's fingers, and the jolt of heat and desire and attraction was almost too much to bear. "Brendon, please—"

"Come on," Brendon said, leaning over and turning the tap so that the shower water petered out to nothing. He grabbed the towels off the sink and threw one at Spencer, and got busy toweling himself down. It took Spencer a moment to realize that he was supposed to be doing something other than just watching Brendon's ass, and he hurriedly dried himself off before following Brendon out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.

Brendon grabbed his hand. "Ass in the air, or knees up?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows. "You decided yet?"

Spencer wasn't sure he was ever going to get used to the fact he got to see Brendon naked and hard, now. He just kept staring at his erection, like if he looked away it would just disappear. 

"Like you," he said, a little distractedly. "Hands and knees, the first time."

"Okay," Brendon said, taking a breath, and Spencer knew he wasn't the only one of them who was nervous. To counter it, he covered the couple of steps between the two of them and wrapped his arm around Brendon's shoulders, drawing him in so that he could kiss him. 

Brendon kissed back with enthusiasm, steadying himself with hands to Spencer's hips, and so much had changed, even in the past few days. Just getting to kiss Brendon was _amazing_ , and—aware of the way it wasn't going to last past the end of the vacation—Spencer kissed him harder. He knew how much of himself he was revealing in every kiss, in every touch, but he couldn't hold himself back, he couldn't hide. For this vacation he wasn't hiding anything. He just wasn't talking about it, that was all.

"On the bed," Brendon said, in between kisses. "It's my turn to have a neon dick."

Spencer snorted, and reached behind him for the remains of the pack of condoms from the nightstand. "Here," he said, taking one out of the pack. "Let me."

Brendon hissed in a breath. "Yeah," he said, steadying himself with a hand to Spencer's shoulder as Spencer knelt down and tore the corner off with his teeth. Fuck, it smelled like banana from down here. He wrapped his hand around the base of Brendon's dick, and remembered blowing him; when he looked up, Brendon was looking down at him, and Spencer knew he was thinking about the same thing. Spencer carefully rolled the condom down Brendon's dick, and without thinking too much about it, dropped a kiss to Brendon's hip. 

"There," he said. "All done."

Spencer didn't know how long he knelt on the bed for with Brendon slowly fingering his ass open. He did know that it was long past the point where he could control his moans, and the way he was panting around Brendon's fingers was as desperate as it could be. When Brendon pressed closer and touched his mouth to Spencer's ass, around his fingers, Spencer nearly shot off the bed in surprise. "Fuck, _fuck_ ," he managed, since that was Brendon's _tongue_. On his asshole, and fuck, that was hot. It felt incredible. 

He whined, unable to help himself, as Brendon licked at him, and then he whined in complaint when first Brendon's mouth, and then his fingers were gone from his ass. "Brendon—"

"You ready?" Brendon asked shakily, and that was Brendon's dick against his ass, waiting. 

"Yeah," Spencer said, nodding, and then Brendon was grabbing on to his hip and sliding in, and Spencer was groaning, loud and unable to help himself. It wasn't pain, but it might have been discomfort—Spencer couldn't tell. All he could discern was the pleasure; the fullness, the slow fill, the way he thought he was going to break in two, in the very best way possible. 

"Fuck," he managed, as Brendon slowly began to fuck him. This was—fuck, he wasn't going to be able to last all that long. He grabbed his dick and squeezed, but it didn't matter all that much; Brendon was still fucking him and it still felt amazing and Spencer's worldview was shifting with every breath. 

"You feel amazing," Brendon told him, hands on Spencer's hips. "Is this what it felt like for you?"

Spencer couldn't talk, so he jerked himself off instead, hand wrapped around his dick. 

He didn't know how long he lasted, but the room felt hot and his skin shone with sweat as he stumbled out a warning to Brendon and started to come. He worked his dick through his orgasm, Brendon saying— _something_ , Spencer wasn't listening, he couldn't—and then he had to hold onto the head of the bed as Brendon continued to fuck into him.

"Gonna come," Brendon warned him after a minute. Spencer felt like he was floating on air. "Going to come."

When Brendon came, it was such a weird, hot feeling. He knew Brendon was wearing a condom, but part of him wanted him not to be; Spencer wanted to know what it felt like to have someone's come in his ass. He couldn't figure out the words for that, though, and instead, when Brendon slid out, Spencer stretched out carefully, and shifted down onto the sheets while Brendon disappeared into the bathroom. 

Brendon came out and leaned against the door frame. "Fuck," he said, dazedly. "That was seriously fucking hot."

Spencer considered saying, _you're hot_. 

Brendon sprawled on the sheets next to him. "This was the best vacation plan ever, Spence. The best. Let's have sex all the time until we fly back." His eyes were closed, and he'd taken the dry patch on the sheets. Spencer felt something cold and painful twist in his stomach, and he realized, too late, that he'd started to think of this as the beginning of something else. Something bigger. 

_Dumbass_ , he told himself, and when he pulled the sheets up and over them both, he closed his eyes and let out a breath. _Just enjoy this week for what it is, and stop making it something it isn't._

—

"I have a cheese hangover," Brendon said the following morning. After their sex and associated nap last night, they'd spent the rest of the night watching old videos of _Singin' in the Rain_ and James Bond while eating their way through the hot cheeseman's Christmas cheese truckles. "And I think that cheese is replicating itself while we look the other way. I'm sure it's gotten bigger. Look at that. Didn't we put less than that in the fridge last night?"

Spencer peered over Brendon's shoulder into the fridge. Their cheese mountain still seemed as big as it had yesterday, even though they'd eaten steadily for four hours. "I don't know. I thought we'd eaten more of it than that," he said doubtfully. The coffee was brewing in the French press, and Spencer had filled the kitchen table with the boxes of cereal that Brendon had thrown in the cart when they'd gone grocery shopping their first day. "Maybe you're right."

"I am right," Brendon said, and turning around, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to Spencer's mouth. 

He tasted minty fresh, and Spencer wondered when it was that they'd both started brushing their teeth as soon as they woke up. They certainly didn't do that at home. Whatever, if it meant they could make out more this vacation, then Spencer wasn't going to complain. 

"Coffee," Brendon said regretfully, after a minute of slow kissing pressed up against the refrigerator door. He leaned past Spencer to get to the French press. He kept his hand on Spencer's hip, a fact that Spencer chose to concentrate on. "Hey, so you want to get out of here today? Do something?"

"Sure," Spencer said, covering Brendon's hand with his own. "You have any thoughts?"

"Sure I do," Brendon said. He reached for a couple of mugs, and pulled the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands. It was still cold, even with the heating on. December wasn't being kind to them, weather-wise. "I saw this on the shelf. Want to try one?" He held up a pamphlet that said _Five Circular Walks Around Newport_. 

"Huh," Spencer said, since walking for fun had never exactly seemed—to him at least—all that exciting a way of spending a day. 

"The way I see it," Brendon went on, dumping the mugs on the kitchen table and pouring them full of coffee. "Circular means one thing. We can start off in a bar and end in a bar. Look, it even has one that's _designed_ to start and end in a pub."

Spencer made a face, and dumped a couple of spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee. He watched as Brendon filled his with milk and sugar, enough that it barely resembled coffee any longer. "You want to?" he said, a little doubtfully.

"Yep," Brendon said. "Come on, it sounds like fun."

"It sounds cold," Spencer grumbled, but he filled his cereal bowl with two Weetabix and a shitload of Coco Pops on top. They'd bought four boxes of cereal on that trip to the grocery store, so Spencer was making it his duty to eat at least two kinds at every cereal-based meal. 

"We have our amazing coats," Brendon told him, tangling his feet with Spencer's under the table and shivering. "And we can just layer up. Here, take a look at these." He thrust a handful of pamphlets into Spencer's hand. The top one said _tairtaithynnhrefdraeth sir benfro_. 

Spencer blinked. "And you understand this?" he said. 

Brendon grinned. "Turn it over, crosspatch. It's English on the other side. But I'm not talking about that pamphlet, try the next one. That's the one that's got the walk that starts and ends at the bar."

Okay, so Spencer wasn't the best-tempered person in the world when he'd just woken up, but whatever. He was always brighter after coffee. He flicked through the pamphlets as he ate his cereal. "Did you know you can see winter ducks? And buzzards. And porpoises and otters and seals."

"Awesome," Brendon said. "Did you miss the part where it starts and ends in a pub?"

"We've missed the beating of the bounds," Spencer said, ignoring him. "That happens in August."

"I can't even make a guess," Brendon said, slurping milk loudly from his cereal bowl. "Do you think it involves actual beating?"

"And the bridge existed as far back as the thirteenth century," Spencer read on, ignoring Brendon's weird attempt at acting out beating the bounds. Once he was done, Brendon rolled his eyes and grabbed the pamphlet. 

"We're doing the one that starts and ends in the bar," he said. "Hurry up and finish your breakfast."

"There's an Iron Age fort," Spencer said, still keeping a hold of the pamphlet, and waving his spoon at Brendon. "And a historical saga set around the mountain. Did we miss a mountain? This place has a mountain?"

Brendon shrugged. "We're doing the one that starts at the bar."

Spencer rolled his eyes, and grinned. "Okay," he said, and suddenly he was infected with all of Brendon's early morning enthusiasm, and he couldn't hide his smile, not even when Brendon's gaze met his. 

"Come on," Brendon said, "eat quicker."

~*~

 _This_ , Spencer thought, _was the worst idea they'd ever had_. They were half way up a hillside, it was freezing cold, there was mud everywhere and Spencer was darkly convinced that they were going to die up here, away from the town, where only sheep would ever see their bodies. 

"That pub was awesome," Brendon said, grabbing Spencer's hand to hurry him over the stile. 

"It was," Spencer agreed, since it had been. It had been dark inside, carpeted in old, faded red carpets with matching faded damaskwallpaper. The pictures on the wall were of the small town fifty years earlier. Everyone in there had wanted to talk, and—Brendon being Brendon—had spent far too long sharing stories with old, bearded Welshmen who remembered the coastline before it had started overflowing with kids in wetsuits dragging bodyboards behind them every summer. One pint had stretched into two, and Spencer was convinced that setting out for a five mile walk after lunch in December could only end badly. 

"Why don't we have bars like that at home?" Brendon asked, jumping nimbly from one moss-strewn green rock to the next. He wobbled precariously on the last one, and grabbed at Spencer for balance. 

"Careful, dumbass," Spencer said fondly. He didn't shake Brendon's hand away, and when Brendon stepped off the rock and into the damp grass, he slid his hand down Spencer's arm and tangled his fingers into Spencer's. 

Spencer bit his lip and looked at the ground for a moment, before fixing his gaze on their entwined, gloved fingers. They'd known each other for so long and this was the first time they'd ever held hands like this, even for a joke. All of this time, all of these years, and it was only now that Spencer was coming to realize that there was more to their relationship than he'd ever thought possible. 

"Okay?" Brendon asked, waving his other hand at the marshy quagmire that was the churned up muddy pathway that led up the side of the hill. 

Spencer knew he wasn't talking about the path. 

"Yeah," he said. He looked around, at the sloping hillside, so dark and green and wet, the piles of standing stones that dotted the landscape, the quiet sheep that didn't shy away from them as they walked. It was beautiful in its own cold, rugged way. He felt warm. 

He waited a few more minutes before talking again. "You know we're never going to make five miles before it gets dark, right?" 

"Pessimist," Brendon said, bumping shoulders with him. He pushed Spencer into the dry stone wall that lined the field, and pressed his cold mouth to Spencer's. His nose was freezing, and so was Spencer's, and they were red-cheeked from the cold, their breath coming in clouds. His lips were chapped and the clouds looked like rain, and the only thing around them for miles that was even vaguely warm was their kiss. 

Spencer kissed him back, cupping Brendon's face in his gloved hand. 

"It's going to get dark and we'll get lost out here," Spencer told him, in between kisses. 

"I'll have you," Brendon said, shrugging and kissing him. "We'll be fine."

"We'll have to _huddle for warmth_ ," Spencer maintained, carefully trying to hide the way his heart was beating faster and his traitorous brain was bringing forth all kinds of images of the future, all of which included him and Brendon, like this, in places that didn't begin and end with Wales. 

"I'm very warm," Brendon told him, rubbing his cold nose against Spencer's. 

"Your nose begs to differ," Spencer said, but he didn't move away. He caught Brendon's bottom lip in his teeth, and Brendon's mouth curved into a grin. He pressed himself to Spencer's front, through the thick layers of their jeans and waterproof pants and sweaters and thick lurid purple coats. From this close up, he could see the flecks of gold in Brendon's eyes, the freckles faded from lack of sun. The dark of his lashes behind his glasses. 

He swallowed, suddenly short of breath. "Let's go home," he said. "Let's go home so I can take you to bed."

Brendon touched his mouth to Spencer's. "Circular walks are stupid," he said, kissing him again. "Whoever thought we should leave the house was a total fucking loser. Bars are crappy."

Spencer grinned. "At least we got some good pictures on the way up. We can prove to people we left the house."

"Yeah, yeah," Brendon said, tugging Spencer forward by his scarf. "Come on, stop hanging around. Let's go home and have all of the sex."

"Yeah," Spencer said, letting himself be dragged, and laughing as Brendon almost tripped over a passing sheep. "I don't think we're outdoorsy people."

"I am," Brendon proclaimed, standing in a muddy puddle up to his ankle. "Shut up, that was totally your fault."

Spencer was too busy laughing to argue. 

~*~


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex, on the other hand, was totally Spencer's hobby of choice. He was going to take it up as a competitive sport. He'd totally win points for style.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to hermette for the beta. 
> 
> For ohohstarryeyed.

~*~

When the doorbell woke them up from their post-sex nap, Spencer kicked Brendon out of bed to go answer it. "It's your turn," he told him from where his face was pressed into the pillows, next to his own little puddle of drool. "I went last time."

Brendon made a cursory protest, but he stumbled out of bed without fighting too hard. Spencer tried to stay awake for Brendon to come back upstairs, but it was tough. Coming down off the mountain that hadn't looked like any mountain Spencer had ever seen had been harder than they'd anticipated. Stopping in every field to make out and take stupid MySpace pictures of themselves with Brendon's crappy camera might have been fun, but it hadn't been the best use of their time. By the time they'd hit the road—and Spencer used the term 'road' loosely, since he was personally of the opinion that for something to qualify as a road it had to fit at least one car down it easily, and not have a raised ridge of mud and grass in the middle that was just desperate to take out any decent suspension if you took the road at anything more than a snail's pace—the light was beginning to go. By the time the little town where they'd started their walk could be spotted in the distance, it was getting seriously dark, and even Brendon was beginning to suggest that they were going to get lost out there and eaten by sheep.

"I don't want to get eaten by sheep," he'd said morosely, as he fell over another unidentified object in the dark and Spencer had had to grab his arm to stop him from falling over. 

"I'll protect you," Spencer had told him, which had been a lie, since Spencer had precisely no survival skills whatsoever, and his last purchase in any kind of outdoors and hiking store had been a pair of flip-flops that had a bottle opener conveniently located on the underside of each flip-flop. Still, it had made Brendon fall over him in relief, and breathe _my hero_ into Spencer's ear, so Spencer had counted it as a win. 

It had taken them another hour to get back to the car, and half an hour in the shower when they got home to defrost. Hiking, Spencer decided, wasn't for him. 

Sex, on the other hand, was totally Spencer's hobby of choice. He was going to take it up as a competitive sport. He'd totally win points for style and longevity. Maybe it could be in the Olympics, like rhythmic gymnastics. It could be _part_ of the rhythmic gymnastics. He imagined winning gold in the sex part of the rhythmic gymnastics at the Olympics, and the anthem being played as they gave him his medal. It was a pretty awesome fantasy.

"Spencer!" Brendon yelled up the stairs. "Mary and Dave are here, come down."

Spencer buried his face in the pillow and made a noise that wasn't _oh good, we have guests_. He had important Olympic training to get back to. "Coming," he called and rolled out of bed and onto the floor with a thump. 

He grabbed jeans from the floor, and a hoodie, and stumbled down the stairs trying to pull his socks on and not tumble forward and break his neck. 

"Hi," he said, kind of ridiculously, tripping over a stray pair of shoes and falling into the living room. 

"Hello," Mary said, from the couch. She was eating a tiny cupcake out of a box, and she waved the box at Spencer to take one. 

Spencer took one without paying too much attention to what he was choosing, because Dave was on his knees in the fireplace, shoveling up ash with a tiny shovel. "Um," Spencer said. 

"Oh, hello," Dave said, sitting back on his heels and wiping his hands on his pants. "Thought I'd just clear your grate whilst we were here. Sorry to interrupt, and all that."

"You didn't," Spencer said, hoping against all hope that his flush wasn't showing on his face. "We were napping. Jet lag. It's a killer."

"It is that," Dave agreed, busying himself laying the fire. Spencer watched in bemusement, taking a bite of cake. They were good, if you could get past the consistency. It was a bit like chewing a brick. A flavored brick. He suspected they were homemade. Very homemade.

Spencer's mind sometimes wandered when he was tired.

"Mary and Dave are here, Spencer," Brendon said, wrapping his arm around Spencer's knee from where he was sitting on the couch, and batting his eyelashes up at Spencer. Spencer resolved to make him pay for that later on, particularly as he couldn't hold himself immune to Brendon's wiles. His pulse fluttered. "They're here to pass on a message from Gareth and Griff."

Spencer raised an eyebrow. _Gareth and Griff_? Spencer needed to start making friends in weird fish and chip takeout restaurants at the bottom of cliffs more often. Especially ones who were going to involve them in possibly burgeoning relationships. Was there a Gareth-and-Griff? It felt like something out of a daytime soap. "Gareth and Griff?" he asked. 

"Well, Gareth," Mary amended. "Griff was just the one who was dropping it off. He's plastering Ernie's bathroom. Ernie's the one at the top of the lane with the hanging baskets." Spencer nodded, nonplussed. "They wanted to know if you wanted to go to the pub tonight."

Spencer glanced at the clock. It was eight o'clock. "Um," he said. 

"They're a nice bunch," Mary said. Dave was still laying a fire in the grate. "That Gareth, well. We never thought he'd be the type to be—"

Spencer raised an eyebrow. 

"Anyway," Mary went on. "Now Griff is, too! Everyone's talking about that. His mum will be pleased. She thought he was just too shy to get a girlfriend."

"Which pub?" Brendon asked brightly. His hand tightened on Spencer's leg. "We were just talking about going out and finding a bar, weren't we, babycakes?"

 _It's okay_ , Spencer thinks, _there are plenty of places around here to dump the body_. _Only the sheep would know._ "Sure we were," he said through gritted teeth. "Which bar?"

"The one in the marketplace in town," Mary said. "If you follow the road down through the lower harbor, and then up the hill again until the roundabout, it's on the right. You can drive past it and park in the supermarket car park. That's what everyone else does. Here, Dave, what's the number for the taxi? You won't want to drive back if you've had a few. You can pick up the car in the morning. Dave!"

"Hang on," Dave said, clumsily fumbling through the menus on his phone with dusty fingers. "I've got it here somewhere, don't mither." He stabbed at the screen with his finger. "Terry's Taxis. Here it is. Got a bit of paper and a pen?"

"We'll put it in the guestbook," Mary said, pulling open the drawer in the coffee table and pulling out an almost-pristine guestbook. "Then it'll be useful for our other guests, too."

"Excellent," Spencer said, and he wondered if he was still asleep, or if this was some kind of sheep-fuelled hallucination. Maybe this whole week was a hallucination, and he'd wake up back in LA with Brendon, and none of this would have happened. Maybe he wouldn't be in love with him, either. 

Spencer couldn't fool himself that _that_ would be the case, anyway. 

~*~

The pub was busy, and loud, and full of people holding pints and talking over the sound of the jukebox. They pushed through the throng to the bar, and Spencer held his arm up for Brendon to duck under and try to catch the attention of the barman. 

"Two bottles of Coors," Brendon begged, when the barman finally came over. 

"American, huh," the guy said. "Are you the ones Gareth told me to keep an eye out for?"

Spencer blinked. 

"Yeah," Brendon said sunnily, covering Spencer's hand with his own. "Do you have Coors?"

"No," the barman said. "We have Budweiser, though. You want that?"

"Sure," Brendon said, since everything around the bar seemed to be doing a good job of advertising a beer that seemed to be called _Brains_. Spencer wasn't drinking that. Okay, so maybe he would, but whatever. He liked beer. Even zombie beer. 

"Gareth's through in the snug," the barman told them, cracking open two bottles of beer and setting them down onto the _Brains_ bar towel. Spencer wondered if he could steal one. His life in L.A. would be enriched with a zombie bar towel. No one else seemed to be that upset they were drinking zombie beer, though. Maybe they'd all be brainwashed. Maybe it was a town of the undead. Maybe they were living in a horror movie. Maybe—

"The snug?" Brendon asked, interrupting Spencer's thoughts. 

The barman nodded towards an arch in the wall. "Through there," he said. "In the corner, by the hangman machine."

"Awesome." Spencer hadn't even noticed the doorway. He fumbled his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a ten pound note, handing it over. It would save him having to stand up and order more drinks next, anyway. When he had his change, they pushed through the throng and under the archway, and into a long, low room that was just as loud, but a little less busy than the main bar. Gareth was in the corner with Griff and Becca and one of the guys that they'd met before, but Spencer couldn't remember his name. 

"Hi," Brendon said, pushing through the crowd to get to the table. 

"Hi," Gareth said enthusiastically. He stood up and hugged Brendon hello, which Brendon probably thought was completely normal, since Brendon was the kind of weird dude who welcomed being touched by strangers. Spencer was a little more reticent in that department, but he let himself be hugged hello anyway. "You remember Becca, and Griff, and Daniel." Daniel was tall, red-headed and broad, while Becca was the short one from last time, with the squashed nose. Spencer found himself thinking that she was kind of adorable. If he wasn't totally in love and with Brendon, he could find himself flirting with her. Fuck, he'd forgotten that this was a vacation affair again. This was getting to be a problem. Fuck. 

"Hi," Brendon said again, and Spencer waved his hello absently, sitting himself down on the seat that Becca had vacated so she could squash on the bench with Gareth and Griff and Daniel. Brendon disappeared to the next table to see if he could find a spare chair. 

"I'm glad you got the message," Gareth said. "I couldn't get the number Brendon gave me to work, so I thought, next best thing, we'd use Mary."

"Our stupid phones don't work over here," Spencer complained. He hoped his mom wasn't too worried. He'd sent her a text from the airport before they set off, but other than that, he and Brendon had been incommunicado since they'd left Los Angeles. "Sorry."

"Doesn't matter," Gareth said, watching over Spencer's shoulder as Brendon pushed through with another chair. "So, what have you been up to?"

It was easy, light-hearted small talk, and even Spencer could feel himself unwinding in the face of such friendly interest. Becca was really nice, and Spencer found himself talking to her about her job as a teacher in a primary school, while Brendon got into a loud discussion with Daniel and Gareth about the Rolling Stones. Spencer grinned. Brendon could go on and on for hours about music, Spencer knew. He was almost as bad, but Brendon could be so disarmingly earnest that Spencer found himself changing his mind sometimes, just because Brendon had the uncanny ability to make even the most wrong musical opinions seem perfectly reasonable. It was like a special kind of superpower. 

The conversation rumbled on, until Daniel started mocking Griff because he was a secret Fall Out Boy fan, at which point he couldn't exactly keep quiet. 

"Fall Out Boy are awesome," he said, butting in. "I'm with Griff."

"Me too," Brendon said, sneaking a sideways glance at Spencer and giving him the ghost of a wink. It made Spencer feel warm, right down to his toes, and he had to blink to shake the feeling away. 

"You have to have the same opinions," Daniel told them, shaking his head. "You're married."

"We have the same opinion about Fall Out Boy," Brendon said, "because we're both right and you're wrong. Easy."

Spencer grinned, and when Brendon curled his fingers into Spencer's, it was a few seconds before Spencer remembered they were supposed to be pretending. It was so easy not to, and for a while, as Brendon argued on about how Fall Out Boy were better than The Killers, Spencer let himself pretend that they were together, that there was a _them_ , that there was more to their relationship than just this week. 

The evening wore on. More beers were procured, and both Brendon and Spencer tried Brains. It was okay, but Spencer preferred the idea of drinking zombie beer than the reality, so when it came to his turn to go for a round, he came back with vodka cocktails, just because. When he handed the drinks out from his battered old _Brains_ tray, he found himself paying more attention to Griff and Gareth, to see if there really was anything between them. Griff was still mostly silent, which seemed to be his raison d'etre, but he was sitting closer to the edge of his chair than he had been when Spencer and Brendon had arrived, and his knee was close to Gareth's. Gareth's attention kept sliding to Griff, even when Griff wasn't saying anything, and Spencer knew the signs. He was guilty of half of them himself where Brendon was concerned, only with Brendon theirs was a strictly vacation-only arrangement. Gareth and Griff seemed to actually like each other, underneath the strict no-discussion rules they'd seemed to impose upon themselves. Spencer hoped they got it together. 

They stayed in the bar until the barman rang the bell and called time, at which point they stumbled, complaining of the horrible cold, out into the street. Brendon burrowed into Spencer's side against the fierce chill of the clear December night, and Spencer wrapped his arm around Brendon's shoulders, holding him close. He was pleasantly buzzed, too drunk to drive, too sober to fall over. Instead, he was drunk enough to press a kiss to Brendon's temple, underneath his knitted hat, and let Brendon tilt his chin up and kiss the corner of his mouth. 

Spencer, all of a sudden, found that he couldn't remember how to breathe. 

Brendon slid his already-cold hands under Spencer's coat and into the small of his back. 

"Fucker," Spencer gasped, pulling away. Brendon's hands were like ice, and Spencer's skin was still warm from inside. He rolled his eyes and punched Brendon in the arm, but Brendon just grinned and tugged him closer for another kiss. 

"Yeah, yeah," Brendon said. "You'll forgive me."

 _Anything_ , Spencer found himself thinking, unbidden, and he swallowed, caught in Brendon's gaze for a moment too long. He tore himself away, and looked over Brendon's shoulder to where Becca, Daniel, Griff, and Gareth were waiting. 

"Are you coming back to mine?" Gareth asked. "We've got beers, and there's a chip shop on the way. 

Brendon grinned, and wrapped an arm around Spencer's back. "Sure," he said. "Thanks for the invite, guys."

"Good Welsh hospitality," Becca joked, letting Gareth slide his arm over her shoulders. Spencer's eyes met Griff's just for a moment, before Griff looked away and dug his hands down deep into his pockets. 

"Chips aren't as good as from my place though," Gareth complained. "But another couple of beers and we won't care."

The chips came from the chip shop on the corner of the parking lot where Brendon and Spencer had left their rental car. Spencer had jogged over and checked it was locked while Brendon waited in line for their chips, and when Spencer got back, he was in the middle of ordering them both chips, curry sauce and a pickled egg. 

Spencer made a face of horror. "No way, dude," he said. "I don't want that."

"Shut up," Brendon said sunnily, holding Spencer's hand away from the counter. Spencer was stronger than Brendon was, but he didn't force it. He just rolled his eyes and stepped back, shaking his head. "There's no way I'm eating a pickled egg," he said. "No offense, but they look disgusting."

"Oi," Gareth said. "They're really good."

"They're not," Becca confided. "We have this argument every week. The only people that think they're nice are Gareth and Griff."

"The rest of you are wrong," Gareth said, and Spencer watched him glance over at Griff, who—as usual—was quiet in the line behind them. Becca was leaning into him though, and he had a hand on her shoulder, relaxed and friendly. Spencer didn't think he'd seen him relaxed before. "Me and Griff are right." He held out his hand for a high-five, and Griff smacked his palm against Gareth's, loud and bright. 

_Oh_ , Spencer thought, seeing the way their eyes met. _Oh_. For a second, he was jealous—heart-thumpingly, desperately jealous because they were falling for each other and they were going to get a chance. If they could get it together, they'd get a _chance,_ together, and it was going to be longer than just a fake honeymoon on the Welsh coast. Spencer swallowed, and tugged Brendon away from the counter, and into his arms. 

"I'm cold," he lied, but Brendon hugged him anyway, kissing his cheek as he rested his head on Spencer's shoulder. 

"I'll warm you up," Brendon said, voice muffled in Spencer's coat, and Spencer thought, _you already are._

They walked through the cold, deserted streets up the hill to where Gareth's flat was, Brendon and Spencer struggling to eat their chips one-handed, their other hands curled into each other, gloved against the harsh cold of the December night. Spencer didn't want to let go; he didn't know if he could. He only knew that his heart felt like it was in his throat, and all he wanted to do was push Brendon up against the nearest wall and kiss him until he was breathless, and begging, and Spencer's. 

After a minute, Brendon bundled his carton of chips closed and into the carrier bag the take out restaurant had given them. "I can't eat them one handed," he admitted, and held the bag out for Spencer. 

Spencer nodded, breathless, and closed his polystyrene carton, sliding it into the bag after Brendon's. Gareth, Griff, Daniel and Becca were a little way further up the hill from them, and Spencer took advantage of the quiet to push Brendon over to the side of the pathway, against a garage wall. He cupped Brendon's cheek in his gloved hand, and leaned in to kiss him. "Missed this," he said, into Brendon's mouth, and Brendon nodded, surging up onto tip-toe to kiss him back just as hard. 

"Me too," Brendon said, even though it was probably nonsensical, since it was hardly any time at all since they'd been in bed together after their freezing walk up the mountain that lied and was actually a hill. He pulled away regretfully, but kept a tight hold of Spencer's hand. "They're waiting for us."

"Sorry," Spencer lied, once they'd caught up, and Gareth was showing them past a rickety garden gate and up to a front door with peeling paint. 

"I'll come over and paint your door for you," Griff said, sliding a fingernail under a fleck of red paint by the door knocker. "I've got some paint doing nothing."

"It's communal," Gareth said. "I don't know if you can."

"Still," Griff said. "I will. Just let me know."

Was it Spencer's imagination, or was Gareth's face flushed and pink? Even if it was, he supposed, it could be down to the cold, and the blast of heat that hit them the moment they piled inside. 

Gareth's flat was upstairs and at the back, cramped and messy and full of old records. Brendon dropped to his knees by the record cabinet and started flicking through. 

"Don't mind him," Spencer said, rolling his eyes and starting to unzip his coat as Gareth flicked the gas fire on, and Griff took the armchair by the door. "He's like a magnet for music. He'll come back down to earth at some point."

Becca disappeared into what turned out to be the kitchen, and came back with two four-packs of beer and a bag of Doritos. "I raided your cupboards, Gaz," she said unapologetically, sitting down on the couch next to Daniel. "Not much in the snacks line."

"Sorry," Gareth said. "There are pork scratchings by the kettle. Me and Griff won them in that pub quiz on Tuesday." He reached for a beer and cracked it open, passing it to Griff, who colored. He reached for another one, not meeting Griff's eyes, and passed it to Spencer, who held it for Brendon. Brendon was lost in the land of new music to flick through, and he wouldn't be paying attention to anything but the piles of old records for the next few minutes, at least.

"You've got some good music here," Spencer said, waving his can of beer at the stacks and stacks of LPs."

"They're my mam's," he said, sinking down on the couch, the end nearest Griff's chair. Daniel sat down on the other end of the couch, and that left a tiny, battered, barely two-person couch for Spencer and Brendon to share. Spencer tossed his coat onto the pile with everyone else's and sank down into the armchair. He was cold right down to his toes, and even the heat from the gas fire wasn't doing much to warm him up. "She had this brilliant idea to put all her vinyl onto the computer, and then get rid of the records. I said no fucking way, and took all the records."

"So now you have the most cramped flat in the history of forever," Becca pointed out, "and your mum is rattling round in that place of hers."

"Yup," Gareth said, with a grin. "Find anything you like in there, Brendon?"

Brendon waved a Wings album in the air. "Is this an original?" he asked, turning around. He unzipped his coat with his other hand. 

"Probably. You want to put it on?"

They ended up listening to some old Wings tracks, and then _A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night_. Spencer thought it was cheesy as fuck, but he was pretty sure his grandmother had had this record, so he wasn't going to complain. After a while, Brendon gave up sorting through the records and crawled into Spencer's lap, head resting on Spencer's shoulder. 

"I'm chasing rainbows," he murmured, in time with the song. 

Spencer's hand tightened on Brendon's elbow, and Brendon nudged Spencer's chin up and pressed a kiss to his jaw. Spencer wasn't thinking about how easy it had been for the two of them to slip into this routine of being together in front of their new friends; it seemed almost expected that they touch each other a lot, and maybe that was why Spencer kept doing it. He touched Brendon all the time, stroking his elbow and drawing him close and kissing the top of his head when he made his excuses and disappeared to the bathroom. They had reasons for kissing, when everyone assumed they were married and honeymooning, and it seemed like both he and Brendon were taking advantage of that. 

"Listen to this one," Gareth said, a while later, stumbling up from the couch and over to the record player. "Nobody fucking knows this record, and everyone should."

"We know it," Daniel said, sleepily. Becca was already asleep on his shoulder, and Daniel had grabbed the blanket that was over the back of the couch to draw it over them both. He had his eyes closed too, half asleep. "You've played it enough."

"And now I'm playing it again," Gareth said. He flicked through the pile on the shelf and came back with a vinyl single, putting it on the turntable. He didn't set it going. He smiled lopsidedly at Spencer. "I'm going to go to bed," he said. "Let yourselves out if you want to, but you're more than welcome to stay." Becca and Daniel were both asleep, and Griff looked like he was, too. "I'll get you and Brendon a blanket." 

Spencer nodded, because Brendon was sleepy against his shoulder. He was too tired and too drunk to think about getting a cab, so he took Gareth's offer of a blanket. "Thanks," he said. 

"Anytime," Gareth said. He came back into the living room a minute later with a blanket for Spencer and Brendon, and one for Griff too. Spencer watched him unfold it, and cover Griff's knees. He colored when he looked up, but Spencer wasn't judging. He was in love with someone too. He smiled, instead, and Gareth stepped over the mess of empty beer cans and Doritos bags to get to the record player. "This is a great song, _Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top_ ," he said, dropping the needle down on the record, before heading for the bedroom door. "Sleep well."

Spencer didn't recognize the intro, but he wasn't as good at picking out sixties tracks as Brendon was. Brendon shifted in his lap, and tilted his chin up. "I love this song," he said in a whisper. 

"I don't know it," Spencer admitted, glancing across the room. The others seemed passed out for the count.

"Listen," Brendon said softly, and it was cheesy, Spencer _knew_. He knew it was cheesy and he didn't fucking care, because all of a sudden his heart was in his throat again, and the singer was telling him that _with every thought of you, I want to shout aloud_. Spencer felt like that. He felt like that about Brendon, and about being here now, with him, and he was so in love it hurt.

_I can't tell the bottom from the top._

Spencer couldn't breathe.

"I'm upside down, but ten-feet tall," Brendon murmured, and then he curled his fingers in Spencer's hair and drew him down and into a kiss. 

Spencer kissed him back, shifting on the couch so that they were wrapped up in each other, the blanket covering their knees, and he couldn't—he just _couldn't_. _I love you_ , he thought, over and over, because he was caught up in the moment, and the song— _the spell you used the day you made me fall—_ it was saying the things that Spencer was feeling inside. Regardless of how stupid it was, it _did_ , and he couldn't help the way he was feeling, or the way that Brendon was kissing him, or the way he was kissing Brendon back. 

"Let's go home," Brendon said as the record finished, and Spencer nodded, unable to say anything that wasn't going to incriminate him.

"Please," he said finally, and Brendon stole Gareth's phone to call a cab from the hallway, as Spencer scribbled a note on the back of an envelope to say thanks. 

"It'll be here in five minutes," Brendon told him in a whisper, coming over to where Spencer was standing by the record player, record sleeve in hand. 

He leaned over and set the record going again, sliding his hand into Spencer's as the introduction played. 

_I'm upside down, but ten-feet tall_ , Spencer thought, and held on tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Hollies - I Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top](http://anonym.to/?http://www.mediafire.com/?8t0b78f5xuf8wj6)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I was going to wake you up when breakfast was ready," Brendon told him, in between kisses. "You ruined my plan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta by Octette. Much appreciated. <3

~*~

When Spencer woke up, the sun was streaming through the bedroom window, and there was a cold spot in the bed next to him where Brendon should have been. He groaned, and reached for his phone—which, even though it wasn't working to make calls, he still kept on him all the time, just in case. He blinked at it blearily, and dropped his head back down to the pillow. Half past ten. Not late enough, bearing in mind what time they'd fallen into bed last night. 

He didn't remember all that much of the cab ride home the previous night. They'd spent most of the journey making out, that much he did remember, Brendon crawling into his lap and kissing him over and over as they tried to remember the address of the cottage for the cab driver. It felt like someone had flipped a switch inside of him while The Hollies had played on the stereo; all he could think about was Brendon, and touching him and kissing him and everything besides. Even now, only half-awake and still contemplating whether to give sleep another try, he itched to touch him. That overrode any half-assed plans he had to go back to sleep, so he shoved back the comforter and reached for his hoodie, tugging on a pair of fluffy neon socks so that his feet didn't freeze. 

Brendon was in the kitchen, frying bacon and drinking coffee. When Spencer came in, Brendon's mouth curved up into a smile. 

"Morning, sleepy-head," he said. 

"Morning," Spencer said, sliding his hands over Brendon's hips. He lined his dick up with Brendon's ass, and pressed a kiss to the back of Brendon's neck. He nudged his dick against the curve of Brendon's ass, half-hard, and Brendon slid his hand behind Spencer's neck, twisting up so that he could meet Spencer's mouth in a kiss. "You weren't there when I woke up," he complained. "The bed was cold."

"I was going to wake you up when breakfast was ready," Brendon told him, in between kisses. "You ruined my plan."

Spencer hadn't brushed his teeth, but then neither had Brendon, and Spencer wasn't about to interrupt this to go find his toothbrush. Brendon could just deal. "Secret breakfast plans," he murmured, against Brendon's mouth. He slid his hands inside Brendon's sleep pants, and curved his palm around his dick. 

"Nefarious breakfast plans," Brendon said, over his sharp intake of breath. He rocked his hips up just a little, just enough, his dick sliding through Spencer's fist. "Bacon, Spence. Cooking. The stove."

"Don't care," Spencer lied, rubbing his cheek against Brendon's jaw. It was rough with stubble, but Spencer liked the burn, especially when Brendon tipped his balance so that he was leaning up against Spencer's chest, Spencer holding him up. "Missed your dick."

Brendon snorted, but Spencer hadn't been lying, so he let Brendon shift the bacon around the pan a little, and then mouthed at Brendon's neck. "My dick is pretty awesome," he said. 

"Uh-huh," Spencer agreed, kissing at the pale skin behind Brendon's ear, hands under Brendon's shirt, stroking his stomach. "Is the bacon cooked yet?"

"I don't care," Brendon said, fumbling for the burner. He turned it off, and shoved the pan to the back of the stove, turning around and wrapping his arms around Spencer's neck. He stood up on his toes and pressed a kiss to Spencer's willing mouth. 

"Hello," Spencer said, which was a totally reasonable thing to say when Brendon Urie was kissing him. Both of them seemed filled with the same kind of urgency. His heart beat like a drum in his chest, heavy and true. It felt like next week, when they flew back to L.A. and reality, was a million light years away. There was just this, and now. And Brendon. 

"Breakfast was a stupid idea, I see that now," Brendon said into his mouth. His hands were in Spencer's hair, and Spencer slid his hands down until they rested on Brendon's ass. The empty bacon packaging fell to the floor, and Spencer had to shove all of the plates and stuff out of the way so that they didn't break anything. They bumped into the fridge, and some of the magnets fell onto the floor. 

Spencer laughed, and crowded Brendon back against the wall, one hand splayed across the tiles as Brendon kissed him, grinning into their kiss. Brendon pulled at Spencer's hoodie, and fumbled with the zip, dragging it down, Spencer shrugging it off until it hit the floor with a metallic clunk as the zip hit the tiles. His phone was in the pocket, and that was probably at least part of the clunk, but Spencer couldn't bring himself to care, not when Brendon's hands were underneath Spencer's shirt.

"Take it off," Brendon told him, in between kisses, pushing him towards the kitchen table. "Come on, come on."

Brendon's mood was infectious, and Spencer couldn't help it; he lifted Brendon up so that he was sitting on the table, and then he pulled his sleep shirt over his head, dropping it down onto the floor so that he could step in between the v of Brendon's legs. He kissed him again, tugging at Brendon's shirt, urging him to take it off. 

It felt totally fucking ridiculous, but Spencer didn't care. He just—he wanted. He wanted this so much, he wanted _Brendon_. He was so fucking in love. He'd never felt like this about anyone, like there was no one else in the whole world apart from the two of them. He knew, somewhere deep down inside, that objectively this was stupid, but he still couldn't help it. He couldn't stop touching him, his hand on Brendon's back, sliding under the waistband of his sleep pants. 

"Want to touch you everywhere," he breathed, his mouth sliding over Brendon's cheek. 

Brendon's head tipped back. "Want you to," he said, and then he kicked his pants off and on to the floor—and then he was naked on the kitchen table, with his dick in his hand. 

"Oh, fuck," Spencer said succinctly. His gaze met Brendon's. "What do you want?" he asked. 

"You," Brendon said steadily, and Spencer's dick jumped. He couldn't help it, he leaned in and covered Brendon's mouth with his own, kissing him again. He put everything that he felt he couldn't say into the kiss, and Brendon met him with equal intensity. Spencer slid his hand down between them, and wrapped his palm around Brendon's, around his dick. 

"This?" Spencer asked, and Brendon shook his head. 

"Fuck me or blow me," he said breathlessly. "That's what I want."

"Jesus," Spencer managed. "Which?"

Brendon tangled his fingers in Spencer's hair, nudging Spencer's chin up so that he could meet Brendon's gaze head on. 

"Both," Brendon said, and Spencer let out a long, helpless groan. 

"One after the other?" Spencer asked. He caught Brendon's mouth in a long kiss. 

Brendon nodded, and pushed at Spencer's shoulder. 

Spencer took the hint, and went down on his knees in the kitchen. The tiles were freezing and uncomfortable, though, so he grabbed Brendon's hand and dragged him into the living room and onto the couch. At least the carpet was warmer and softer, so he wasn't going to end up with bruises in weird places and freezing cold knees. 

"Spencer," Brendon begged, and Spencer nudged Brendon's knees apart, pressing closer. Brendon's fist still circled his dick, and Spencer pushed it out of the way, sliding his mouth down over Brendon's dick, swallowing down Brendon's gasp of approval. 

He was kind of uncomfortable and he wasn't sure he gave the best blow jobs in the world, but Brendon didn't seem to care. He pulled at Spencer's hair, keeping him close, and Spencer breathed wetly around Brendon's dick, trying to figure out how to blow Brendon at the same time as remembering to breathe when he needed to. He wasn't sure it was that big of a deal; Brendon seemed to be enjoying himself, anyway. 

He wasn't sure how long he'd been down there, with his mouth around Brendon's dick, when Brendon urged him up and onto the couch. 

"Fuck me," Brendon pleaded breathlessly, rolling onto his front. "I'm close, Spence."

Spencer thought, _Vacation romance_. He needed to talk to Brendon and see if there was any chance of this thing that they were sharing expanding beyond this week. He hardly dared let himself hope that it might. He shook his head, though, to get rid of the thought. What he needed to do right now was fuck the fuck out of Brendon. 

"We need lube," he said. "And a condom."

Brendon looked back over his shoulder. "I'm clean," he said, and it took a minute for Spencer to parse what he meant. 

"Fuck." He grabbed his dick and squeezed, just because. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Brendon said. His face looked curiously shuttered, just for a moment. "I was the one having the fucking physical."

"I didn't mean that," Spencer said. "If you say you're clean, you're clean. I meant... are you sure you want this? Without a condom?"

"Unless you've got some weird sexually transmitted disease you don't want to tell me about—which, dude, if you have, it might have been pretty cool if you'd told me that before I went down on you all those times."

"I had the same physical you did, B," Spencer said. When they'd signed their last contract, they'd had to switch healthcare insurance because the record company had changed their benefits program, and they'd both had to sit through a morning of boring tests before they'd been signed up.

"And?" Brendon asked.

"Clean bill of health," Spencer said, imagining what it would look like to see his come sliding out of Brendon's ass. 

"Awesome," Brendon said. "Do you want to put your dick in my ass or not?"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Spencer managed. "Yes, yes, I do."

Brendon let out a long, ragged breath. "Upstairs," he said, since he'd clearly thought through the logistics of fucking on the couch, too. Especially when there was a bed upstairs, which they could probably come on without leaving too much of a lasting stain. 

Spencer slid his arm around Brendon's waist, and pulled him up for a kiss. He thought, _I love you_ , but he didn't say it. He figured they had to have that whole other conversation first. The _Is there a way we can continue with this?_ conversation. 

Everything else could come later. 

Brendon came easily, tumbling to his feet and winding his arms around Spencer's neck and tilting his chin up for another kiss. "Want to feel you come in my ass," he whispered, breath hot against Spencer's cheek. 

Spencer couldn't breathe. "Okay," he finally got out. "Want that too." He slid his hand into Brendon's. "Come on."

"Yeah," Brendon said, bumping his shoulder against Spencer's. He leaned in and pressed his mouth to Spencer's ear. "I can do it to you, afterwards. If you want."

Spencer wanted. He really fucking wanted. "Yeah," he managed, and wondered how long he was supposed to last when he was fucking Brendon in the ass without a condom. 

Upstairs, Brendon went up on his hands and knees on the bed, and Spencer rid himself of his sleep pants and fluffy socks, positioning himself behind Brendon on the bed. He was so fucking hard, and all he could think was _Gonna fuck Brendon bareback_ , and there was no coming back from that. This was so fucking hot. 

And it was so fucking _intimate._ He couldn't get over how intimate this was, and how amazing it felt to rub the head of his dick over Brendon's ass. He was slick and hard and he wanted. He _wanted_. 

"Brendon," he choked out, slicking himself up. He might be going in without a condom, but he was going to use all the fucking lube he could, both on his dick and fingering Brendon's ass open. "Fuck. You have no idea what you look like."

"You're hotter," Brendon gasped. "Please, Spence. I can feel you. Fuck me, please. I want you inside of me."

Spencer took a breath, lined himself up, and pressed inside. 

He was never ever going to get over how this felt. Brendon clenched down around him, and it was so hot, and so tight, and it was all he could do to wrap his fist around the base of his dick and squeeze. 

" _Move_ ," Brendon groaned, his own hand moving on his dick. 

"In a minute," Spencer said, through clenched teeth. "Trying not to come."

"My ass is awesome, I know." Brendon wriggled breathlessly. "It brings all the boys to the yard."

"Oh my god, stop that." Spencer tried not to laugh. "If I laugh, I'm going to come. You don't want me to come yet."

"Not yet, no," Brendon said. He kept jerking himself off. Spencer couldn't stop watching the way his arm moved, fast and sure. "Oh fuck, Spence. You have no idea what you feel like. You're _inside_ me. Fuck, you're inside." He whimpered, breathless. "Please, move. Please."

Spencer rolled his hips. "So tight, Brendon. You're so tight, and so hot, and my dick's in your ass." He kept watching in wonder. He wasn't ever going to get used to what it looked like to see his dick moving in and out of Brendon's ass. The fact there was no condom just made it that much hotter. "I can _feel_ ," he said, which was kind of ridiculous, since it wasn't like he hadn't done this before, but this time he was doing it without the added layer of latex, and it felt like his ability to feel sensation had increased by a factor of about fifty. He steadied himself with a hand to Brendon's hips. 

Brendon's hand was a blur. "Feels so good," he managed. "You feel so good."

Spencer couldn't hold on much longer. He just—he couldn't. "I'm going to come," he gasped. "Gonna come in your ass, B. In you."

"Do it," Brendon pleaded. "Please, Spence. Do it."

Spencer's hips rocked up, and his stomach dove and swooped, and then he was coming, and his dick pulsing in Brendon's ass. "Brendon, _Brendon_ ," he said, and then he was sliding out of him, and dropping down on his knees. He touched his fingertips to Brendon's asshole, to the come that was sliding out of his ass, and Brendon hissed in a breath. 

"Do that again," he begged. "Don't stop, Spence."

Spencer ran his fingers over Brendon's hole. They were covered in come, and he kept on playing with it, fingering Brendon's ass like he hadn't just had his dick in there, like he hadn't just come. Like this wasn't _his_ come he was playing with. He pressed himself to Brendon's side, and covered Brendon's hand on his dick with his own. He took over the rhythm, and Brendon concentrated on holding himself up as Spencer jerked him off with one hand, fingering Brendon's ass with his other one. 

It was the most intimate thing that he'd ever done in his whole life. 

"Come for me, B," he said, still fingering Brendon's ass. "Come for me."

"Going to," Brendon said, through clenched teeth, and then his dick was pulsing in Spencer's fist, and Brendon was coming, all over Spencer's hand and the sheets. 

Spencer kept on stroking him through it. "There you go," he said. When Brendon's arms finally gave out and he collapsed down onto the sheets, Spencer went with him, wrapping his arms around Brendon and holding him tight. 

Brendon was shaking. 

"I've got you," Spencer told him, over and over. "I've got you."

Brendon hid his face in the crook of Spencer's neck, and Spencer pulled the comforter up over them and, kissed every part of Brendon's face that he could reach. 

They must have fallen asleep, because when Spencer opened his eyes again, the sun was in a different part of the sky, and Brendon was curled up into Spencer's side, hand on Spencer's chest. 

Spencer brushed Brendon's hair away from his face, and watched as Brendon's eyes fluttered open. 

"I fell asleep," Brendon said, blinking away sleep. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. "Did I drool?"

"No," Spencer said, trying to hide the way that his heart was pounding. He felt dizzy with affection. "You're good."

" _We're_ good," Brendon said, shifting so that he could rub his nose against Spencer's jaw. He tilted his chin up. Spencer splayed his fingers over Brendon's cheek and drew him in for a kiss, smiling against Brendon's mouth. 

"We are," he said, and kissed him again. 

"Hey," Brendon said, pulling away after a minute. "We should get dressed if we're going to make it to that Christmas fair." He rolled out of bed, standing up and rolling his shoulders, picking up his phone and checking the time. "Quickest shower ever, Spence."

Spencer blinked. "What?" He wrinkled his nose. "What Christmas fair?" 

"The one they told us about yesterday in the pub," Brendon told him, rolling his eyes. "Have you forgotten already?"

"Clearly," Spencer said. He felt kind of woolly-headed. He blinked. He maybe kind of remembered a conversation about the Christmas fair in the village hall. There was a competition for the kid with the best Christmas outfit, he remembered that part. He didn't remember the part where they were supposed to be going.

"I'm showering," Brendon said, waggling his eyebrows in what Spencer supposed Brendon considered a _come hither_ kind of a way. "Come join me?"

Spencer was surprisingly engaged with that plan.

~*~

The Christmas fair was so popular that the cab driver ended up having to drop them off at the corner, because he couldn't get any closer. Their car was still in the parking lot by the grocery store from the previous night. The street had been closed off to traffic, and stalls were lined up along either side of the road, people milling between them, wrapped up warm in scarves and hats and gloves. A large hand-painted sign said, _This way to the decorated Christmas tree competition_. 

Spencer blinked, because he was pretty sure that two hours ago he'd been fucking Brendon without a condom, and it kind of felt like a different world. Certainly it felt longer than two hours ago. 

"Wow," he said. The street was lined with lights, and there was a brass band and a choir whose members were all in matching reindeer ears. 

"This is awesome," Brendon agreed, and then he slipped his gloved hand into Spencer's, and grinned. "Come on, let's go see _everything_."

Spencer's heart beat loud and hard in his chest, but he let himself be dragged into the throng, still holding Brendon's hand. 

~*~

"When you say _mince pie_ ," Spencer asked carefully, as Mary and Dave tried to force a plate with a tiny pie in the middle of it in his general direction. Mary and Dave were manning the refreshment table in the village hall, and had waved Brendon and Spencer to the head of the line, much to the disgruntlement of the old people in front of them. "Are we talking, like, hamburger meat? Because I'm kind of okay without a hamburger pie, thanks." He eyed the plate dubiously. 

Brendon hooked his chin over Spencer's shoulder. "It doesn't look like hamburger meat, Spence."

Mary laughed. "It's not. It's mincemeat. Fruit and spices, mostly. No meat. You'll like it, I promise."

Spencer wasn't so sure, but he accepted the plate anyway, and one for Brendon, who was clutching a tray with two cups of coffee on in chipped cups and saucers. There was a bar of chili and lime chocolate, too, which Brendon had just won on the tombola.

"Are you American?" the lady behind them questioned, poking Brendon in the arm with her purse. She was short and hunched over and clutching a cup of tea in her hand. "I went to America once. Las Vegas. My Arthur bought a cowboy hat and insisted on wearing it all the way home on the plane. I've never been so embarrassed."

Brendon grinned at her. "We're from Las Vegas," he told her. "Would you like to sit with us?"

"These are my honeymooning boys," Mary put in, from behind the table. "The ones I was telling you about."

"Oh," the old lady said, nodding sagely as they wove their way through the tightly packed tables to a free one in the corner. Spencer wondered how this was going to go. She leaned in. "My sister never got to marry her Helen. Crying shame."

Something heavy and painful lodged itself in Spencer's heart. He pulled a chair out for her to sit down, and Brendon clumsily managed to put the tray down and take her cup of tea at the same time. Unable to help himself, he slid his hand into Brendon's, and squeezed. 

Brendon glanced at him, swallowing, and then back at the old lady. "I'm sorry," he said. Spencer echoed that, and more. He hated the lie they were living in.

He hated that it was a lie. 

"They were very happy, mind," she went on, making herself comfortable. "Forty-seven years they were together. My Arthur and I only managed forty-five before he passed. She always did like to beat me."

Spencer, all of a sudden, wanted to cry. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't be," she said. "My Arthur was tired, at the end. So much pain. In the end it was just like falling asleep." For a moment, she looked a million miles away. "I used to wish I'd fall asleep, too, and wake up next to him again." She smiled, a little watery-eyed, and then shook her head, shaking it away. "Don't mind me," she said. "Just an old woman with nothing but her memories." She leaned in and covered Spencer's hand with her own, wrinkled and warm. "Wouldn't change any of them. Not even the sad ones. Worth it for the good ones. Lucy wouldn't have changed any of it with Helen, either. Although a wedding would have been nice. They would have liked that. I would have liked that."

Spencer tried to smile, but couldn't. He laced his fingers with Brendon's, though, and didn't try to pretend like he wasn't wishing that they had forty-five years. 

"It's not like God wouldn't have welcomed them with open arms," she went on, looking at their joined hands. "All those good things that they did. Helen did the flowers in the church for thirty years. Don't see why they shouldn't have gone up there as wives."

Brendon shook his head. "He would have welcomed them," he said. Spencer knew what it cost him to say that; Brendon's faith had been dead and buried a long, long time. 

She smiled. "He would," she said, then she shook her head. "Listen to me going on. Mary tells me you're honeymooning?"

Spencer nodded. "Yes," he said, since that part at least didn't feel like a lie. Out of all of the lies they were telling during this vacation, the fact that this felt like a real honeymoon wasn't one of them. 

"It's really beautiful here," Brendon told her. 

Even though it was gray and cloudy and dark and it had rained a lot, the countryside was beautiful and striking, and everyone had been so fucking nice to them. Spencer felt like a dick for letting them believe that they were married. 

"Lived here all my life," she said. "I'm Grace, by the way."

"Same name as my mom," Brendon said. His smile was a little lopsided. Spencer swallowed. "I'm Brendon, and this is Spencer."

"I think she's probably very proud of you, isn't she? Proud mum when her boy got married."

"Something like that," Brendon said. 

Grace leaned in. "She'll come around. My da, he couldn't bring himself to say Helen's name until 1962." She bumped elbows with Brendon. "Called her his daughter-in-law after that."

"He sounds like a good guy," Spencer said, since there was a muscle pounding in Brendon's cheek and he could recognize the signs. 

"He was," Grace said. She smiled a little nostalgically. "Come on, then. Try your mince pie. And then when you've had that, get your young man to run over and get us all a nice buttered Welsh cake. Minnie's made them, and don't let her hear me say it, but they're the best in the county."

Hesitantly, Spencer picked up his mince pie. It was like a miniature pie, the size of a cupcake, but in a foil cupcake case, and dusted with powdered sugar. He carefully removed the foil case and narrowed his eyes. In his head, he was still convinced it was going to taste a lot like hamburger meat. 

Brendon grinned at him. "Go on, Spence. Dare you."

"Shut up," Spencer said, but his knee bumped into Brendon's under the table, and Brendon didn't move away. He returned the pressure instead, and the he took a bite. 

It was—interesting. It was dried, sweet fruit and spices inside, but kind of weird to explain. 

"It's kind of like—I think it tastes like a Fig Newton," he said, after a while. 

"Huh," Brendon said, and took a bite. "I like it," he said. 

"Converts," Grace said. "Knew there was hope for our American cousins yet."

Spencer wasn't sure. He took another bite. He'd never been the hugest Fig Newton fan, growing up. He'd been fourteen before he'd stopped spitting raisins out, too.

Brendon leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. 

"What was that for?" he asked, surprised. 

Brendon shrugged. "Just because," he said, and did it again. 

They spent another half-hour in the refreshment room with Grace, letting her talk. She was sweet and kind and talked a lot. They found out that she and her husband had been all over the world in the sixties. In the end, though, her daughter-in-law came to collect her, and so both Brendon and Spencer kissed her on the cheek before leaving to go wander the rest of the fair. 

There were stalls selling homemade holiday cards, and knitted dolls, and stalls inviting passers-by to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar. They tried to guess the weight of the cake, too, but everyone was guessing in grams and neither of them had any idea at all. Brendon bought him a paper cone of candy and red licorice laces, sliding his hand into Spencer's and telling him that they should try to re-enact the scene from _Lady and the Tramp_ with the spaghetti. 

It all felt so easy, and so relaxed, and Spencer couldn't remember feeling this happy, or this much in love. 

It was so easy to take Brendon's hand and sneak away from the fair and down the path by the side of the church, to lean up against the wall and press his mouth to Brendon's. To rub his cold nose against Brendon's cheek and feel him laugh, and push him away, and then pull him back in for another kiss. He thought, _I love you_ , and kissed him again. 

"Best vacation ever," Brendon said softly a while later, sneaking his gloved hand into Spencer's again as they walked down the road towards the decorated Christmas tree exhibition, trying to avoid the crowds of kids with toffee apples and bags of chestnuts. "Best vacation fling ever, right?" He snuck a sidelong glance at Spencer, and grinned, biting his lip. 

Spencer nodded, and tried to smile. _Vacation fling_ , he heard, over and over. 

Next week they'd be back in L.A., and all this would be over, and Spencer didn't know how the fuck he was supposed to keep his heart from breaking. 

"Come on," Brendon said, tugging him into the church hall, where a pathway had been set up, weaving in and out of the decorated trees, a neatly calligraphed sign by each of them with the name of the group that had prepared it. The one closest to the door had knitted slices of cake hanging from the branches. "Cool," he said reverently.

"Yeah," Spencer said, and tried not to wish that things could be different.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't Brendon's fault that Spencer was in too deep, and he was stuck trying to find a way to keep his heart in one piece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta by the ever-wonderful hermette. <3

"You're quiet," Brendon said when they got back to the cottage. Spencer concentrated on unbuttoning his lurid purple coat and unwinding his scarf. 

"Just thinking," Spencer said. He kept replaying _vacation fling_ over and over in his head; it didn't make him feel any better. "Come on, I'm starving." They'd picked up Chinese food on the way home, a bag full of foil cartons with greasy cardboard lids. They'd kept Spencer's lap warm the whole way back from the street fair. 

"I'll get plates," Brendon said, disappearing into the kitchen, hopping on one foot while he unlaced his boot. "You get a fire started and put something on the TV."

Spencer mock-saluted him in response, but not where Brendon could see. It wasn't Brendon's fault that Spencer was in too deep, and he was stuck trying to find a way to keep his heart in one piece. Secretly he knew he was way too far gone to emerge from this unscathed. He just hoped he could come out the other side with his band intact and his best friend, even if he couldn't have what he really wanted.

"Do you want beer?" Brendon called from the kitchen. 

"Yeah," Spencer said, going down on his knees by the fireplace. The fire was already laid, thanks to Dave, and all he needed to do was light the kindling, which he did with a match from a box hidden inside a chipped commemorative Charles and Diana mug on the mantelpiece. He fanned the flame with a spare bit of kindling, trying to make sure the fire caught. A single flame licked at the edge of the kindling, and then split into two, then three. 

He watched it for a moment before sighing and moving the fireguard back in place, dusting his hands against his knees. He turned around. 

Brendon was in the doorway, carrying two plates, cutlery, and a four pack of beer. He was watching Spencer with a curious look on his face. It shifted into a more familiar smile when he caught Spencer looking.

Spencer smiled lopsidedly. "Fire's lit," he said and held his hand out for his share of what Brendon was carrying. 

"We're fire _masters_ ," Brendon said, passing him a plate and a beer. "Did you pick out a video?"

"You pick," Spencer told him. He sat down on the couch and pulled the coffee table closer with one hand, putting his plate down on the table, and taking a long gulp of beer. He really fucking needed the beer. While Brendon was kneeling down by the VCR, Spencer took a moment to let out a long, shaky breath and rub his palms against his thighs, trying to stop them from sweating. He was so fucking screwed. He was so in love. 

"There we go," Brendon said, standing up with the remote in his hand, pointing at the screen, and fast-forwarding through the trailers. 

"Independence Day?" Spencer asked, raising an eyebrow and picking up the video box from the coffee table. He'd seen it before, so he didn't feel the need to read the blurb, dropping it down again. He reached for his plate and scooped up as many noodles as he could in one fork full. He wasn't hungry, but he supposed having something to do was a plan. He might get hungry half way through his plate, at least. He hadn't eaten in a while.

"Fuck yeah, America," Brendon said with a shrug. "It was either this or Mrs. Doubtfire."

"Huh." Spencer pushed his beef in black bean sauce around his plate, and fumbled in the greasy paper bag Brendon had dropped onto the coffee table for a prawn cracker. They'd come free with their order, and even though they looked like weird Styrofoam circles, he'd braved a taste and they were pretty fucking good. For shrimp chips. "Okay. It's weird they don't have fortune cookies here, isn't it?"

"I guess," Brendon said. The movie started playing in the background. "The last one I got said _strength is built on inner character_."

"I don't remember mine," Spencer told him. He did; it had said, _love lights up your world_. He'd laughed, and mocked, but right now it felt like the truth. The flipside, of course, was that getting your heart broken made all the lights go out. 

"I loved this movie when I was a kid," Brendon said. He stabbed a sweet and sour battered pork ball and ate it lazily off his fork, not bothering to cut it up. "Haven't seen it in forever."

"Me neither," Spencer said, conscious of the fact that Brendon's knee was pressed up against his. He wanted to pull away, to go back to how things were, but he couldn't. If this was all they were going to get, then he wanted to savor every moment of it. He returned the pressure, all the while staring at the screen while the movie played. 

He ate methodically, until his plate was mostly clean and nearly all the prawn crackers were gone. Brendon was still eating, a bottomless pit for food, just like always. 

Almost without thinking, he put his plate down on the table and slid his hand over Brendon's knee, resting it there. 

Brendon twitched and then he let out a breath and dumped his plate down on the floor, covering Spencer's hand with his own. 

"Hi," he said. His smile was crooked. 

"Hi," Spencer said. He smiled back, kind of lopsided. "I had fun today." 

"It was a pretty good holiday date," Brendon said. He curled his fingers into Spencer's. "I liked it."

"Yeah," Spencer said, because he didn't exactly want to think too much about what had happened before, or what would happen afterwards, when they were back home in LA. He wanted to think about _now_. He reached up and brushed his thumb over Brendon's cheek, over the pale smattering of freckles across his cheekbone, down to the corner of his mouth. He stroked the pad of his thumb over Brendon's bottom lip. "You want to make out?"

Brendon smiled. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I really do."

Spencer nodded, and leaned in, covering Brendon's mouth with his own. He tasted warm and a little sticky from the sweet and sour sauce, and Spencer slid his hand into Brendon's hair to keep him close. Brendon nudged the two of them down onto the couch cushions, his hands sneaking under Spencer's shirt, warm in the small of Spencer's back. 

It didn't matter what happened next week, or the week after, Spencer lied to himself, so long as he could have _now_. 

~*~

Spencer wasn't sure exactly how long he and Brendon made out on the couch for, but it was long enough that food ended up seeming like a pretty long time ago. Their hair was mussed up, and their shirts pushed up, and what had started off lazy and easy was slowly shifting towards something a little more intense, a little more heated. 

"I really want to fuck you in front of the fire," Brendon told him, hands in Spencer's hair, and Spencer could think of a thousand different things to say in response to that, but all he could manage was _okay_. 

"Good," Brendon said, sitting up. He pulled his shirt over his head, and dropped it off the edge of the couch and onto the floor. 

Spencer propped himself up on one elbow, and reached over with his hand to run his palm over Brendon's chest, pressing his thumb to Brendon's nipple. He just—he felt like he wanted to map out every inch of Brendon's skin, so that when they were back home and this was all in the past, he could remember it all properly. 

Brendon hissed in a breath as Spencer kept on playing with his nipple, slowly rubbing it with his thumb as it hardened beneath his touch. "I was going to fuck you," he said breathlessly. 

"I know," Spencer told him, leaning in and licking Brendon's nipple. "That's still going to happen."

Brendon slid his hands into Spencer's hair, his head tipping back as Spencer mouthed at his skin. He wanted to remember what Brendon tasted like. He wanted to remember what this felt like. It was as if he was trying to catalogue every touch and every taste so that he could hold it in his mind and have it be enough. Like if he had this fixed, it wouldn't matter that he and Brendon weren't a thing—that it was just a vacation fling. 

"I want to fuck you," Brendon said again. He was holding Spencer close though, pressing kiss after kiss to Spencer's temple as Spencer kissed his way down Brendon's chest. "I've been thinking about it all day."

"Tell me," Spencer said. "Fuck, tell me."

"What?" Brendon asked, his hips rocking up as Spencer started to pull at his pants, trying to get the fly undone. 

"What you were thinking," Spencer said, in between kisses. "Tell me." He'd shifted down so that he was on his knees half way down the couch, fumbling with Brendon's pants. He wanted Brendon's dick in his mouth. He'd never—blow jobs had never been his thing before, but now he just wanted them all the fucking time. 

"Holy shit," Brendon managed, pressing his hips up so that he could shuck off his pants and Spencer could pull at the waistband of his underwear, freeing his dick. 

Spencer leaned in and slid his mouth down over Brendon's dick, hand splayed across his stomach. 

Brendon whined. "Fuck, that's good," he said. "Fuck, Spence. I want to lick my come out of your ass. I want to come in your ass and watch it slide out. I want to know that's where I've been."

Spencer wrapped his fingers around the base of Brendon's dick and continued to blow him. He tasted warm and a little sweaty, and he smelled like _Brendon_ , like heat and sex and like the two of them, together. It tasted—this was what he wanted. He wanted this, wanted Brendon, wanted to have sex with him over and over and over so that the taste of his come was familiar. _I want to remember what your come tastes like_ was about as close to a declaration of love that Spencer could manage right now. 

"You're going to make me come," Brendon said, half-heartedly trying to push Spencer away. "Want to come in you. Spence, please."

Spencer sat back on his heels and went to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, but Brendon stopped his hand and knelt up to meet him, covering Spencer's mouth with his own. 

"Want to know what I taste like to you," he said, in between kisses. He slid a hand between them and popped the top button of Spencer's fly. His hand found its way inside, and inside Spencer's underwear, and Spencer had to shove his pants down to free his dick. "Love your dick," Brendon said. "It's so soft."

"It's really fucking hard," Spencer growled, trying and failing to be sexy. 

Brendon snorted. "You know it, baby," he said, and he nipped at Spencer's lip with his teeth. "Want to fuck you bareback," he said. "Is that okay?"

"The most okay," Spencer managed. He figured—it felt like words were something he used to know how to use, at some point that wasn't this one. He pulled away, standing up and kicking off his pants and socks, so he was naked in front of the Christmas tree, fire crackling merrily to his side. 

"It's like a holiday greeting card come to life," Brendon quipped, pulling off his socks. 

"Not the kind my parents ever send."

"Thank god," Brendon said, standing up and wrapping his arms around Spencer's neck, pressing right up against him so that his dick, wet and hard, was pushed up against Spencer's stomach. "Now kiss me before I fuck you."

Spencer leaned in and pressed his mouth to Brendon's. He'd meant it to be quick and hard and dirty, but it ended up something slower, something different, something that meant _I really fucking love you_. Brendon ran his hands up Spencer's sides and kissed him back, cupping Spencer's face in his hands. 

"Get down on your hands and knees," Brendon told him breathlessly, and Spencer nodded, kneeling down on the sheepskin rug in front of the fire. "I'm going to get the lube from upstairs, don't move."

Spencer laughed, letting his head hang loosely. He was kind of tense, he knew that. He'd never been fucked without a condom, and being fucked itself was still kind of a new thing for him, and it was _Brendon_ , so his brain felt like it was twisted inside out and upside down. His dick was so fucking hard. 

"Hey," Brendon said, coming back in and leaning over to press a kiss to the middle of Spencer's back. "So, I'm going to finger you, okay? That okay?"

"Yeah," Spencer managed, since it was. 

"Awesome," Brendon said, and then there was the sound of the lube cap being flicked open, and then cool, wet fingertips were stroking over his asshole and Spencer was whining already, right there without even a fingertip inside of him. "You like that," Brendon said. 

"A little," Spencer lied. 

Brendon laughed, and slid the tip of his finger inside. Spencer groaned.

He really fucking loved this, he realized a while later, when the slide of Brendon's fingers in and out of his ass had become something he could concentrate on, his breathing coming in pants. Brendon was talking to him, but Spencer couldn't focus on what, because all he could think about was Brendon's fingers in his ass. 

"Fuck me," he begged, when it started to feel like it might be getting too much. He wanted to come. His dick was so fucking hard, and he was trying not to touch himself, but it was tough. He wanted to come from Brendon's dick in his ass, not from his own hand. He could come jerking himself off every single day for the rest of his life. He got Brendon for this week, and this week only. He wasn't going to touch himself. 

"Fuck," Brendon echoed, and then the fingers in Spencer's ass were gone, and instead there was the press of Brendon's dick instead, the slick tip of his dick against Spencer's ass. "Breathe," he said, and then he was pressing in, and it was—it was incredible. 

Spencer felt so full, and so _connected_ , and he was probably going to laugh at himself in the future for feeling this intense, but he didn't care. He loved Brendon, and having sex with him was the best thing he'd ever done, no matter how much it was going to hurt, having to stop. Brendon was inside of him, and fucking him, and everywhere they touched it felt like _everything_. Like too much and not enough, all at the same time. He was so fucked. 

"You feel so good," Brendon told him, over and over. 

It felt like hours, but it was probably only minutes. Spencer had no idea how long they'd been going, only that he was so turned on and if he let himself think about it, his hands were starting to hurt from the pattern on the rug. He really wanted to jerk off, to give himself the satisfaction of coming. His orgasm was curling in his belly and he could barely breathe with want, but he held fast and didn't touch. 

"I'm close," Brendon went on. "I think I'm going to come. I'm going to come in you, Spence. Going to come."

Spencer wanted to beg him, but he couldn't find the words. He nodded instead, trying to hold off, but he couldn't. When Brendon started to come he cried out, desperate for more, and then he was curling his hand around his dick and jerking himself off. All he could think about was Brendon, and coming. 

When he felt Brendon's tongue on his ass, licking at his hole, he couldn't hold on. It was like Brendon had set off every nerve ending in his body, and he was on fire, desperate. He couldn't think. It was incredible, and he could feel Brendon's come sliding out of his ass. His hand was a blur on his dick, and that was it, that was enough. 

He came with a bitten off cry, Brendon's hands on his hips, and then he was closing his eyes and sagging down onto the rug. He tried to remember how to breathe, but Brendon was wrapping his arms around him and holding on, so maybe it didn't matter. All that mattered was this. 

~*~

He must have fallen asleep, because when he opened his eyes, he was uncomfortable and his back was way too warm from being in front of the fire. Brendon was asleep, pressed close to Spencer all along one side. They were naked and sticky, and Spencer poked Brendon in the side to wake him up. 

"Hey," he said, as Brendon grumbled in his sleep, frowning and trying to push Spencer away. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of Brendon's mouth. "Wake up, dude. It's like sleeping on a barbecue. We need to move."

Brendon kept his eyes closed. "Don't want to," he complained, tilting his chin up. "Kiss me again."

"What did your last slave die of?" Spencer said, touching Brendon's cheek. He cupped Brendon's jaw in his palm and leaned in for another kiss, ignoring the heat of the fire on his back. They needed to put some clothes on and sit further away from the fire. 

"Not being kissed enough," Brendon grumbled. 

Spencer grinned and kissed him again. "We need to move," he said, in between kisses. "This is fucking uncomfortable."

Brendon wriggled. "I'm comfortable," he said. He opened his eyes and reached up to stroke his hand into Spencer's hair, drawing him in for another kiss. "Come here."

Spencer didn't complain about that. He needed to move though, so he shifted so that he was kneeling over Brendon. 

"That's better," Brendon told him. He shifted a little, getting comfortable, and then slid a hand down between them to fist his dick. "You should blow me," he said. "My dick needs attention."

Spencer rolled his eyes. "You're such a dick," he said, but he shuffled back so he was kneeling either side of Brendon's knees. Brendon was half hard, his dick poking up, and Spencer couldn't help but get closer and run his tongue along the length. 

Brendon hummed his appreciation. "You can do that forever," he said, his hands in Spencer's hair. 

Spencer thought, _please_ , but didn't let it show on his face. He fucking loved Brendon's dick, and he really loved it now, when it was only half-hard and sleepy soft against his tongue. He could feel Brendon hardening beneath him, and he licked at the pearl of pre-come at the tip, feeling Brendon's whimper shiver through him. He really loved going down on him, and when he took Brendon's dick in his mouth, Brendon's fingers tightened in Spencer's hair, and that went straight to his dick. 

"Want to blow you too," Brendon said. "Fuck, turn around, let me suck your dick at the same time."

Spencer didn't care about the heat of the fire. He didn't care about anything, except shifting so that he was on his side beside Brendon, and his dick was touching Brendon's lips. He pressed forward into his mouth, and licked at Brendon's dick at the same time. 

Everything was slick, and hot, and kind of weird; he'd never done this before, with anyone, and it was difficult to concentrate on blowing Brendon when Brendon had Spencer's dick in his mouth, and the angle was all fucked up. He curled his fingers around Brendon's dick instead, licking in between his fingers, thumb stroking at the tip. Brendon was fully hard now, and Spencer jacked him as he took the tip in his mouth. 

Brendon was sucking his dick and it felt incredible, warm and wet and he wanted to rock his hips closer so that he could get even _more_ , but he had to tell himself to keep still. Oh, _fuck_ , he was caught up in this and it felt so good. He still felt a little like he was asleep, like this was one fucking awesome dream he was having, and not really happening. Brendon rocked up into Spencer's mouth, and Spencer choked a little, sliding back to get his breath back. 

This was—it was amazing. Their rhythm was screwed up and he wasn't sure that either of them knew what they were doing, but he was getting blown at the same time as going down on Brendon, and that was kind of incredible. His orgasm was building, and he could tell that Brendon's was too, his rhythm becoming jerky and irregular as they both neared the edge. He couldn't even tell Brendon he was going to come, instead rocking his hips so that his dick hit the back of Brendon's mouth, and that was enough to tip him over. He started to come, desperate and hot, and Brendon swallowed it all, keeping him in his mouth until Spencer was done and breathlessly mouthing at Brendon's dick to push him to his orgasm, too. 

When Brendon started to come, Spencer couldn't keep him in his mouth, and Brendon's dick slid out, come hitting Spencer's cheek and his nose and his chin. Spencer—a little shaky after his orgasm—wrapped his hand around Brendon's dick and took him in his mouth again, keeping him there until Brendon was done, and starting to soften. He slid off and rolled onto his back. 

"Fuck," he said finally, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. His arms and legs feel like limp spaghetti; he wasn't sure he could have stood up if he'd tried. His brain was a total fucking mess. 

"Yeah," Brendon said. He fumbled for Spencer's hand, tangling his fingers with Spencer's. "Fuck."

Spencer covered his eyes with his arm and tried not to think.

~*~

When Spencer was finished in the shower, he found Brendon leaning up against the doorway in the bedroom with two bottles of beer. 

"Hey," Brendon said with a rueful smile. "You want a beer?"

"Yeah," Spencer said. He pulled off his towel and dried his hair with it for a moment, before dropping it down onto the bed and reaching for his sleep pants and a shirt. 

Brendon held out a bottle for Spencer to take. "So," he said. "Feels like we had all the sex today."

"Yeah," Spencer agreed. He took a long swig from the bottle. "You okay?"

"Yep," Brendon said, and elbowed him in the side. "Kind of hungry again, though. You want snacks?"

Spencer laughed. "Yeah," he said. "Always." It was weird how comfortable he felt around Brendon after they'd had sex. He was pretty sure there should be some awkwardness, but there never was. Just this—the two of them, the same as they'd always been. His best friend. "You got any ideas what you might want to do tomorrow?" They only really had a couple of days left in the UK. 

Brendon shrugged and smoothed Spencer's damp hair away from his face. "I'm pretty sure we could come up with something." His gaze dropped to Spencer's mouth, and then back up again. His eyes twinkled. 

Spencer rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure there will be orgasms," he said. "I mean, what do you want to do apart from the orgasms."

"More orgasms?"

Spencer snorted. "Apart from the orgasms."

Brendon leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of Spencer's mouth. "Let's go walk up the cliffs above Gareth's fish and chips place. We can walk up, take pictures, come back down, have fish and chips, and come back here for orgasms."

"Sounds like a pretty good plan to me," Spencer agreed. He fumbled with the hem of Brendon's shirt. "Hey, I was thinking."

"Uh-huh," Brendon said, narrowing his eyes. 

"It's good, I promise," Spencer said. "I was thinking that maybe we could go out on our last night. Have dinner, do something nice. Do you want to?" _A date,_ he thought, over and over. _I'm asking you out on a date_. 

"Cool. That sounds cool." Brendon leaned past him, and picked up his mostly-useless phone from the nightstand to check the time. "You want to watch TV and eat snacks for the rest of the night? We have all that stuff we bought at the store."

Spencer curled his fingers into Brendon's hair, still damp from his shower earlier, and drew him in for a kiss. "Sure," he said. "Feed me crackers."

"Sexy," Brendon said, and kissed him again. "Come on, let's go downstairs where it's warm. It's freezing up here."

"Yeah," Spencer agreed, and tried not to read too much into the fact that it felt like they'd agreed to a date.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Brendon and Spencer go for a walk, take pictures, and eat fish and chips. No, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to hermette for the beta! This part got away from me, so I've split it into two. Next part of the evening will follow in the next couple of days. <3

"Wow," Brendon said, turning around in a circle, eyes wide. "The view up here is _amazing_."

Spencer concentrated on his pamphlet. "Did you know," he said, "that the Pembrokeshire coast supports some of the finest wildlife habitats in the UK?"

"No," Brendon said, "because I'm not a weirdo like you."

"Shut up," Spencer said. "I'm teaching you interesting stuff. Listen."

"Okay, okay," Brendon said, leaning in and pressing his mouth to the corner of Spencer's. "Totally listening."

Spencer blushed a little, unable to help himself, and busied himself staring down at his pamphlet about the coastline, which he'd picked up from the rack in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. "The coast is home to gannets, puffins and manx shearwaters," he read. 

"Never heard of them," Brendon pronounced. "What else?" He slid his arm around Spencer's waist and, even though it was through ten thermal layers and a lurid purple coat, Spencer's mouth went dry. 

"Razorbills, guillemots, kittiwakes, fulmars and various species of gull, as well as shags, cormorants and the rarer choughs and peregrine falcons. How do you think you pronounce chough?" He tried it as _chugh_ , but he wasn't sure that was right. "Chowg?"

"There isn't an animal called a shag, shut up," Brendon said. He hooked his chin over Spencer's shoulder. "And that isn't a word."

"It is, look." Spencer showed him the pamphlet, pointing randomly at the page. "And I think it's a bird."

"Foxes, rabbits, squirrels, seals, porpoises and dolphins," Brendon read. "Cool."

They were standing on the top of a headland, jutting out into the ocean, so that all around them on three sides was nothing but endless gray, angry sea, and the cliffs leading away in both directions. It was beautiful, and bleak, and absolutely freezing. 

They'd parked up in the lot at the bottom of the headland, next door to Gareth's fish and chip restaurant, and walked—huffing and puffing a little, for the incline was steep, and the ground kind of treacherous—up one side of the headland. Forty-five minutes later and they were at the topmost point of the hill, with a view that genuinely took Spencer's breath away. Only part of that was due to the fact that Spencer was going to die of cold if he stood here much longer. 

"You should take pictures," Brendon said, wrapping his other arm around Spencer's waist and tugging him in closer. It felt—it felt intimate, and kind of possessive, and Spencer really, really liked that, especially as Brendon drew him in for a kiss, gloved hands sliding up over Spencer's cold cheeks. Part of him really wanted Brendon to be possessive. He let himself be kissed. 

"It's too cold," he said finally, when there was only so much feeling left in his face. It was really, really cold. He rubbed his nose against Brendon's cheek to demonstrate just how cold. "My fingers will fall off if I try and take pictures."

"You'll regret it," Brendon said, which was the truth. Spencer really would. He loved taking pictures, even when it was cold enough to die of hypothermia. "Get your camera out, Spence. Stop being a giant loser."

Spencer grumbled, trying to shrug off his backpack with minimum amount of effort. His gloves were so huge that getting his backpack open was a lot like trying to thread a needle with a machine gun. In the end, exasperated, Brendon pulled his own gloves off and unjammed the zipper, tugging out Spencer's camera and holding it up like a trophy. 

"Not that hard, Spence," he said, rolling his eyes. "You want me to hold it up and press the buttons too?"

Spencer shrugged. That didn't seem like too bad an idea. "MySpace shot?" he suggested. 

"No one has uploaded a picture to MySpace since 2007," Brendon pointed out, but he hooked his chin over Spencer's shoulder again, holding the camera up. "Smile for the camera."

Spencer frowned instead, making a face. Brendon took a look at the picture on the display screen and laughed. 

"Again," he said. "Smile this time."

"Never," Spencer pronounced. Brendon held the camera up again, and pressed a kiss to Spencer's cheek as he took the picture. Spencer felt himself blushing, even as Brendon continued to hold the camera up, pressing the shutter over and over, but then Brendon was making a soft, whining noise in his throat and kissing him again, for real. 

Spencer forgot about the camera and kissed him back. 

Afterwards, Brendon touched his mouth to Spencer's jaw, and handed him the camera. "Your turn," he said, pink-cheeked. 

It took Spencer a moment to realize that Brendon wasn't inviting Spencer to photograph them kissing again. "Thanks," he said, deliberately not looking at the LCD screen. He held the camera to his eye instead, adjusting the focus with way too much concentration, and focused on the cliffs in the distance, at the endless rocky outcrops and wet-rich green fields tapering suddenly off into the harsh hew of the cliff face. 

He took picture after picture, of everything, in all directions. He wanted every single moment of this documented, wanted tangible evidence that this wasn't just a fever dream. Wanted something real to look back and remember. 

He turned and focused the camera on Brendon instead, setting it up with a few clicks to catch the way the light hit Brendon, his smile fond and easy. Spencer knew what Brendon looked like when his smile didn't meet his eyes, and this wasn't one of those times. Brendon looked—he looked like he was happy, and having a good vacation, and even if he wasn't in love with Spencer the way Spencer was in love with him, and even if he thought this was just a vacation fling, then at least there would be a picture of him looking happy. 

Spencer clicked again and again, and Brendon started to laugh, gloved hand to his mouth. He cupped his hands together and rubbed them for warmth; he waggled his eyebrows at Spencer and pushed his tongue into his cheek. Spencer got it all, picture after picture, and when he was finally done, Brendon tugged him closer and into a kiss, cold mouth against cold mouth, and Spencer couldn't help but wish that things were different. 

"Hey," he said, pulling away. "Do you—"

"What?" Brendon asked, and Spencer shook his head. He'd been going to say, _Do you ever think that we might be able to do this again in LA?_ but he'd lost his nerve at the last moment. 

"We should go back down," he said. "I'm getting hungry."

"Sure," Brendon agreed. "I could eat a horse. Or a lot of fish and French fries."

"Pysgod a sglodion," Spencer corrected, since that was probably the only Welsh he was going to take back to California with him, and he only knew that from the sign above Gareth's restaurant. He knew that and _araf_ , which he assumed meant 'slow', since it was painted all over the roads. Totally enough to get him through. 

Brendon rolled his eyes. "Come on," he said. "I'll pay. My treat."

~*~

"Gareth," Brendon proclaimed, bounding into the almost-empty fish and chip restaurant and waving his arms in the air. "A feast. We need a _feast_. Fit for kings. We have walked for hours. Days."

"We went up the hill," Spencer said, rolling his eyes. He hooked his fingers into the crook of Brendon's sleeve, anyway. 

Gareth laughed. "Hi," he said. "You've been all the way up the Head? You must be frozen stupid."

"We are," Brendon said, coming over to the counter and resting his hands on the warm glass screen that separated them from the cooked fish. "I think we probably need all of the food in the world."

"And tea," Gareth supplied.

"And tea," Brendon agreed, and to his credit he only sounded a little doubtful. "And I don't want curry sauce."

"I do," Spencer said, joining Brendon in plastering himself to the warm counter. He didn't care what he looked like—the only other people in the restaurant were an aging waitress flicking through a magazine and not paying either of them any attention, and an old man who was eating bread and butter and staring at them with undisguised interest. "I'll have his."

"Great," Gareth said. "Are you eating in? Do you want the works?"

Spencer was only sure what half of those things meant, but whatever. "Sure," he said. 

"Go sit down," Gareth told them. "I'll bring it over."

"Awesome," Brendon said. "And on that note, I'm going to find the bathroom." He darted in and pressed a kiss to Spencer's cheek, and Spencer very carefully did not blush an unbecoming shade of tomato-red.

Spencer ducked his head instead and made for the table in the corner, Keeping an eye on the door through to the bathrooms, he pulled his camera out of his backpack, and switched to playback mode. He hurriedly flicked through the pictures until he came to the ones he was looking for, the ones where he and Brendon were kissing and Brendon kept pressing the shutter. 

Most of them were blurred, and more than one of the focused on the stone cairns behind their heads, but there were eleven pictures in total, each one of the two of them together, and Spencer knew he'd never seen himself so in love. "Holy fuck," he said to himself, and bit his lip. He put his camera down in his lap, and tried to remember how to breathe. 

"Hey," Brendon called from the counter. Spencer hadn't even seen him come back out of the bathrooms. "Spence, do you want to go see Gareth's band play tonight?"

"You have a band?" Spencer asked, stuffing his camera back into his backpack and hoping that Brendon hadn't seen him looking at the pictures. 

Gareth made a face and pulled on another pair of blue disposable gloves. "We're not great," he said. "It's my sister's school Christmas ball, and it turns out she's got more faith in us than we have, because she's bugged the ball committee into paying us to play tonight." He shrugged his shoulders, and poked around in the vats of oil with some kind of utensil. Spencer wasn't sure what he was doing, and he didn't care to ask. "First billing, mind. They've got a DJ from Haverfordwest doing the main part. It's sixth form, too, so they'll all be out necking vodka in the car park whilst we're playing, so you should come. Cheer us on. We're doing covers, mainly."

"Who's us?" Brendon asked, shifting so that the waitress could get back behind the counter. 

"Me, Griff on drums, Becca on keyboards and me and Clare on guitar. Well. Clare's only learnt four chords but she's definitely getting better."

"Awesome," Brendon said, sneaking a look across at Spencer and risking a ghost of a wink. "You need a couple of willing roadies?"

Gareth grinned. "We haven't got that much stuff. We had to borrow an amp."

"We'll be your roadies," Brendon said. "Won't we, Spence?"

Spencer couldn't help but grin. Brendon's enthusiasm was infectious. "Sure," he said. 

"That's great, guys," Gareth said. "Honestly, it's been so great meeting you both. Like, really great. You should give me your email addresses so we can all keep in touch."

"Definitely," Brendon said. "Have you got a napkin?"

"Serviettes are over there," Gareth said, pointing at the table in the corner. Brendon looked nonplussed for a moment, and then scooped a handful of paper napkins up and sat back down at the table with Spencer. 

"Write your email on there," Brendon said, sliding a napkin across the table. 

"You do it," Spencer said. "You know it as well as I do."

"Huh," Brendon said, and wrote both of their emails down on the napkin with a leaky ballpoint pen stolen from Gareth. Sliding it to the edge of the table, he pulled another one off the pile and shielded it from Spencer's view, writing something secret on it. 

"Hey," Spencer said. "Show me."

"No," Brendon said. "Look out the window or something. I'm busy."

"Show me," Spencer begged. 

"In a minute." Brendon ran his tongue over his lip, and then grinned, holding up the napkin. In the middle of it were two stick figures, standing so close that they may or may not have been holding hands, and above that, in capital letters, Brendon had written _best vacation_. 

"Awesome," Spencer said, his heart in his throat. 

"What a talent," Gareth said, coming over with two huge plates of battered fish and golden-brown chips, so hot that they were steaming. "Move it out of the way, though, unless you want chips all over it. I've done you fish, chips, mushy peas, a bit of fish cake because I had one left over, two pickled onions and you, Spence, have double the curry sauce. Violet's bringing you your bread and butter and your tea, so I hope you're hungry."

"The hungriest," Brendon said, shooting an awkward look at Spencer across the table. "Right, Spence?"

"Right," Spencer echoed and looked down at his plate. 

The food was pretty amazing, even though Brendon wasn't exactly sold on pickled onions and Spencer wasn't sure he and mushy peas were going to have a long and lasting relationship. The fish was delicious though, bright white and fresh, the batter golden and crisp and hot. The fishcake was good, although Spencer preferred the battered fish, and both of them gave the tea and bread and butter a cursory nod of approval, especially when they realized they could make their own French fry sandwiches. 

Gareth came over and told them to come over to his place for six, and they could help load the stuff into the back of their cars. "Bet you're sorry you offered to help now," he said, passing them a white takeout box and a carrier bag. "But here's some afters for you to take home. To say thanks in advance, like."

"Afters?" Spencer asked. 

"Dessert. Pudding," Gareth told them. "It's just a couple of slices of double chocolate gateau, but I thought you might want to take them with you."

"Thanks," Brendon said, and pulled out his wallet. He'd already paid for the rest of their meal when they'd ordered it. "How much do we owe you?"

Gareth put his hands up. "Gateau is on me," he said. "To say thanks for tonight."

Afterwards, Spencer leaned across the table. "Gateau?" he asked. 

"Absolutely no clue," Brendon said with a grin. "It'll be a surprise."

"Better not have anything to do with fish," Spencer said, blowing out his cheeks and rubbing his stomach. He was so fucking full. He couldn't eat another mouthful of anything, if someone paid him. 

"It won't," Brendon said, leaning over the table and curling his fingers into Spencer's for a moment. "Are you ready to go?"

 _I want to go to LA like this,_ Spencer thought, but he didn't say that. "Yeah," he said instead. "Come on."

~*~

Gateau turned out to be two slices of chocolate layer cake with approximately six inches of chocolate cream frosting on the top and on the side, and another two layers in the middle.

"Wow," Spencer said and blinked. 

"It's like a heart attack in a slice of cake," Brendon said. "Let's eat it now."

"How can you have space for anything else to eat?" Spencer asked, yawning and unzipping his coat. They'd snuck a look inside the box Gareth had given them as soon as they'd got inside, but Spencer couldn't have eaten it if he tried. He unlaced his boots with stiff fingers, and then toed them off, leaving them in the entrance to the kitchen. "All I want to do is lie on the couch and not move again. Ever."

"Loser," Brendon said, following suit and kicking off his shoes. "Does not moving again, ever, include not making out with me?"

"Never," Spencer said decidedly, without looking up. He knew he meant _never, ever_. He was, after all, a guy who was in it for the long haul, even though Brendon wasn't. He resolved to speak to Brendon about it when they got home, see if there was a space for the two of them to hook up when they weren't in Wales. It wouldn't be the same as it was here, he knew that, but right now he'd take something. Anything. 

"Awesome," Brendon said, scooping up the box with the cake in, and a couple of spoons. "Come lie on the couch with me and make out."

"How could anyone resist," Spencer told him dryly, hoping his want didn't show on his face. 

Brendon just waggled his eyebrows. "Come on," he said and led the way into the living room, only stopping to make sure the lights on the Christmas tree were switched on. "It's sad we're not going to be here for Christmas," he said, perching the cake on the edge of the coffee table. 

"Yeah," Spencer said. He'd flicked the switch on the boiler in the kitchen so the room should start to warm up at some point. They didn't have that long before they needed to go out to meet Gareth, so there wasn't time to light the fire properly. Instead, he tugged the heart-shaped blanket off the back of the couch, and sprawled over the cushions, pulling the blanket over him. 

"Hey," Brendon complained. "Leave some blanket for me." He made Spencer shift back on the couch so that he was lying on his side; then he slid into the space Spencer had left, and wrapped his arm around Spencer's waist. "Don't want to fall off," he said, wriggling until he was covered with the blanket too. 

Spencer ducked his gaze and let his forehead rest against Brendon's for a moment. Just for these few minutes it felt like it was only the two of them, with a relationship that stretched back across the albums and forward through the years. Brendon pressed his lips to Spencer's cheek. 

Spencer let his eyes fall closed, letting out a breath, and then Brendon cupped his face in his hand and tilted Spencer's chin up, touching his mouth to Spencer's. Spencer let himself be kissed, Brendon's hand in his hair, and then it was easy to slide his hands under Brendon's sweater and pull him closer and kiss him back. 

He had no idea how long they stayed there, just kissing, but when they were interrupted by the alarm going off on Brendon's phone, Spencer was breathless and flushed. 

Brendon pulled away and fumbled awkwardly on the table for his phone. "We need to go soon," he said, and Spencer complained, pulling Brendon down for another kiss. 

"Stay here," he said. "Make out with me some more." They were both hard, in a lazy, comfortable kind of a way, but Spencer hadn't any particular desire to take things any further right now. He just wanted to make out on the couch for the rest of the night. Brendon's mouth was red and well-kissed, and Spencer felt a strange sense of pride knowing that that was _him_. 

"I pressed snooze," Brendon said, grinning lopsidedly. 

"Awesome," Spencer said, and slid his hands into the small of Brendon's back. He nipped at Brendon's bottom lip with his teeth, and Brendon whined in the back of his throat, tilting his chin. It was so easy just to kiss him again, over and over until the alarm went off again. 

"We have to go," Brendon said regretfully. "Come on."

Spencer groaned, and readjusted himself in his pants, awkwardly hard. "Okay, let me get changed."

"No time for jerking off," Brendon rolled his eyes and touched a kiss to Spencer's temple. "Change your shirt, let's go."

"There's always time for jerking off," Spencer grumbled, sneaking a look at Brendon's erection. 

"There would have been, if we hadn't pressed snooze. But we did, and now we're late. Get off, fuck, okay, one more kiss—"

Spencer grinned against Brendon's mouth, and kissed him again. 

It didn't matter if they were a bit late.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it looks like snow, Avril Lavigne features rather more than Spencer would like, and Brendon has an unfortunate off-screen encounter with a bat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta by the wonderful hermette. Exciting and random Google searches for the purposes of this chapter included: a) can badgers get TB (there's only so much farming information a girl can pick up from episodes of _The Archers_ ) and b) what do Americans call the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic. The pub in this chapter is based on a real place, as is the valley and the lethal road up the side of a hill. And the wild horses. Any resemblance ends there.

They were more than a little bit late to Gareth's place. 

By the time they finally arrived, Becca, Clare, and Griff were already trying to shove a drum kit into the back of what looked like the smallest car in existence, and Gareth was carrying guitars into the back of another one. 

"Sorry we're late," Spencer lied, climbing out of the car and offering to help Gareth with a very battered and very old amp.

"You're here now," Gareth said with a grin. "Do either of you have any idea how to fit a drum kit into a Fiat Punto?"

"Um," Spencer said, and Brendon started to laugh. 

An hour later they were unpacking into the school hall, the school crammed into a street just up from the main square, buffeted on all sides by rows of houses.They were setting up on a stage which Spencer suspected wasn't normally geared towards housing bands. None of the band had bought any tape with them to stick down any of the wires, so Gareth and Griff had launched a secret and dangerous mission to the art department to steal themselves some. 

Becca leaned over and elbowed Spencer as he got busy setting up the drum kit. "Fiver says they take double the time they should," she said, and Clare caught her eye and laughed. 

"Tom and Daniel reckoned they caught them snogging on the way to the pub last night. Gareth says they were late because they got asked for directions, but whatever. They're getting it on."

Brendon grinned. "Really? That's awesome."

Spencer couldn't contain his jealousy. He bent over the snare drum, adjusting the height and making sure the feet were splayed properly. The stand was so old that the set-up was stiff and unyielding. He was jealous of Griff and Gareth getting to start something real, something tangible, something they could tell their friends about—or not, as the case may be—but that could have a future. Spencer wanted a future with Brendon so badly he thought he might collapse under the weight of it,but the fact was, his job was working with Brendon, and he couldn't risk screwing that up by pushing for more if Brendon really didn't want it. Sometimes it felt like Brendon was as into this as he was, but other times it still felt like it really was just a vacation fling. Either way, Brendon was still calling it a fling, and Spencer needed to respect that. He _did_. Talking about maybe making this something more was something he needed to do carefully, when they were back home. 

"Hey, Spence, isn't that awesome?"

"Yeah," Spencer said, swallowing. "Awesome."

Gareth and Griff took fifteen minutes to find a roll of tape, and when they came back, Gareth's shirt was untucked. Becca, Clare and Brendon exchanged amused looks. 

Spencer busied himself with the mic stand. 

"You seem like you know what you're doing," Becca said a while later, coming over with a can of Coke for Spencer. What he really wanted was a beer, but he supposed that was out of the question for a high school dance. He cracked open the can and took a long gulp. 

"Yeah," he said, wiping his mouth. 

"Do you play?" Becca asked. 

Spencer felt guilty for what he and Brendon were hiding. He hated that they were lying about everything. He squared his shoulders. At least maybe they could be honest about this one thing. "I play drums," he said. "And Brendon plays everything. He's kind of a genius. We're in a band."

Brendon stopped what he was doing. "Spence." 

Spencer looked at him. "He's a genius," he repeated, deliberately not looking away. "Plays everything. Seriously. Total fucking genius."

Brendon tilted his chin up, just a little, then back down again. "Spencer's learning to play the keyboards," he said and then he grinned, his eyes crinkling. Spencer let out a sigh of relief. "I'm teaching him."

Clare smiled. "That's really cute," she said. "Did you play together at your wedding reception? They're always doing that in films, it makes me cry. Like that bit in The Wedding Singer, on the plane."

Gareth rolled his eyes. "You cry at anything, you." He grinned at Brendon and Spencer. "You didn't tell me you were in a band. What kind of music do you play? Are you any good?"

"They're in Panic! at the Disco," Griff said, from behind Gareth. "Aren't you?"

Spencer could feel his cheeks flushing. "Um," he said. 

"No they're not, don't be ridiculous," Clare said, and then she trailed off, as neither Brendon or Spencer told him he was wrong. 

"How long have you known?" Spencer asked, instead. 

"Since that first night," Griff said. He smiled lopsidedly, and Spencer was left wondering if that was the reason he'd been so quiet with them the whole time. "I used to fancy Pete Wentz."

"Who?" Gareth asked, frowning. He folded his arms. 

"Lead singer of Fall Out Boy," Griff said. "Don't any more, though."

"Good," Gareth said, and then when Becca and Clare raised their eyebrows, he went bright red. "Shut up," he said, going even more red as Griff slid his hand into Gareth's. Gareth was as red as anyone could be, but he didn't look away from either Becca or Clare. 

"Tom and Daniel saw you snogging," Clare said. "You're both really crap at keeping a secret." She wagged her finger at Brendon and Spencer. "You two, though. You're pretty good at it. Tell me a song that your band did, I'm crap at remembering songs."

"Um," Brendon said. "Nine in the Afternoon?" Then he hummed _haven't you people ever heard of closing the god damn door,_ "I write sins not tragedies?"

"Oh, right," Clare said, although she didn't look that much like she was any clearer who they were. Spencer didn't know whether to be pleased about that, or not. 

"Why didn't you say anything?" Spencer askedGriff, unable to help himself. "If you knew who we were, why didn't you say?"

Griff shrugged. His hand was still in Gareth's, and Spencer couldn't help but be jealous he got to do that for real. "I thought that you were keeping it secret on purpose. Maybe you didn't want the attention."

"Are you two famous, then?" Gareth asked, eyes wide. "Really?"

"Kind of. Maybe," Brendon said. He met Spencer's eye for a moment. "We're famous to like, a small section of people. Mostly Panic! fans."

"You were the support band for Blink-182," Griff said. "And you sang with Fall Out Boy."

"Um," Gareth said. "That sounds sort of famous, guys. I used to love Blink-182."

Spencer wrinkled his nose in embarrassment. "Sorry," he said. "It's just—" he hadn't really thought this through. Now that he'd admitted who they were, he'd put their whole lie in jeopardy. What if Gareth or Griff or Clare or Becca told someone that they'd met the guys from Panic!, and that they were married? That would be a story to some people. "We haven't told anyone. Not even our families."

Clare blinked. "Not even your families? You mean—you got married and they don't know?"

"Kind of," Brendon supplied. He slid his hand into Spencer's; it was hot and a little sticky. Spencer squeezed it, and held on. 

His heart beat loud and uneasy in his chest. _Oh fuck_ , he thought and felt like a total fraud, especially when everyone was looking at them with _sympathy_. They didn't need sympathy, they needed yelling at for lying to people who had been nothing but welcoming and friendly and nice to them. Spencer felt like the lowest of the low. 

"They don't know that the two of you—" Becca started and waved a hand at the two of them. 

"No," Brendon said kind of helplessly, glancing at Spencer. "I can categorically say that they have no clue."

"Guys, I'm so sorry," Gareth said. He looked really sorry for them. "And I don't really know much about your line of work, but are you going to tell anyone?" 

They all looked so unhappy for them. Spencer squeezed Brendon's hand again. His heart was in his throat; of all the lies they'd told, this one, where they'd tried to tell the truth, was turning out to be the worst. 

"No. I mean—" Brendon trailed off. "When we get back we're going to go back to the way things were. Just friends. Who live together." He wasn't looking at Spencer, and Spencer wasn't looking at him. Both of their hands were sweaty, but neither of them let go. 

"We're really sorry," Becca said. "That must be awful."

"It's fine," Spencer said quickly. "It's all fine. We've had this vacation, it's okay."

None of them looked like they thought it was okay. 

There was an awkward silence. Spencer couldn't figure out how to let go of Brendon's hand, and he had no idea how to look him in the face, and he really, really had no idea how to look any of the others in the eye after this. He'd really screwed things up. 

Gareth swallowed. "Do you two want to go check to see if we've left anything in the car?" He held out the car keys, and Brendon took them, nodding. 

It was an obvious excuse to let him and Brendon have some time to themselves, for which Spencer would have been grateful if it wasn't for the stupid lie they were stuck in the middle of. He managed an awkward half smile in Gareth's direction, and followed Brendon out into the hallway, his hand still in Brendon's. 

"So," he said once they'd rounded the corner, as he took in how different this school was from the one he went to. There were no lockers in the hallways, for a start, and the halls were narrower and not as bright. Everything felt different, everything was strange, and he was on the verge of fucking everything up with the one person he really fucking needed to not fuck things up with. "Sorry? I didn't mean to, you know, let on we were in a band. I just—we're lying about everything. I wanted there to be something we weren't lying about. I'm sorry." He expected Brendon to pull away, and yell at him, but he didn't. 

"Doesn't matter," Brendon said, and then he slid his arms around Spencer's neck and pressed a kiss to Spencer's neck. "It doesn't matter. We'll go back home, no one there knows where we went or that we had to pretend. No one will find out, it's okay. No one will believe we were having a fucking honeymoon in Wales, Spence. No one's going to find out."

For a split second, Spencer imagined everyone knowing they were having a honeymoon in Wales, and wanted it to be true. Fuck, everything was fucked up. He was putting everything on the line for the sake of _this_ —a vacation fling the week before Christmas. "You're right," he said. "Anyway, I don't think they'll say anything. And who's going to believe it's true, anyway?"

"Nobody, that's who," Brendon said, his arms still around Spencer's shoulders. He didn't pull away. 

"Right," Spencer said and let out a breath.

~*~

Gareth's band was really fucking awful, but they looked like they were having such a good time that neither Brendon nor Spencer could bring themselves to care too much. They did mostly covers, of songs like Wonderwall and I Believe in a Thing Called Love, which were—well, they weren't good, but they were at least enthusiastic, if possibly a little out of the reach of the crowd. They were playing to a mix of juniors and seniors, who mostly looked like they'd prefer a DJ that played Jason Derulo, but Spencer wasn't about to suggest that Gareth and the others change their set. They were all a little out of time, and a little out of key, and Gareth liked shouting into the mic and hoping for the best, but whatever, they were having a good time on stage. Spencer knew all about that. _Brendon_ knew all about that.

Most of the kids were sneaking out to the parking lot and across the road to the pub, anyway. 

This was _way_ different from Spencer's high school. 

Their set ended with a very loud—and not all that accurate—cover of AvrilLavigne's Complicated. "Huh," Brendon said, leaning over. "We should so cover this."

Spencer blinked. "Um," he said. 

"Don't try and hide it, Spence," Brendon said. "I know you love the Lavigne."

"It's got a really, really shitty drum part," Spencer protested, but he knew he was going to end up backing down on this. Brendon's smile was too bright. 

"Take off those preppy clothes," Brendon sang under his breath. He elbowed Spencer in the side and waggled his eyebrows. 

"You look like a fool to me," Spencer shot back. 

Brendon just leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of Spencer's mouth. "If you want, we can cover Sk8ter Boi instead."

"Thanks," Spencer said dryly, holding his hands above his head to clap as the final chords died away. The only other AvrilLavigne song he could think of at the moment was My Happy Ending, which he didn't want to devote too much attention to right now. 

"The drum part's better," Brendon wheedled, clearly still talking about AvrilLavigne. Spencer's brain had moved onto other things. 

"Marginally."

Brendon slid his hand into the small of Spencer's back. "I'll persuade you." His eyes gleamed, and Spencer could feel himself wavering. "You want to get out of here?"

Spencer glanced at the stage. "We have to help them pack up before the DJ's set." 

"Bummer," Brendon said lightly. His eyes were bright. "Come on, they're finished."

Taking their set apart was a lot easier than setting it up, and apart from the way that every time they went out into the parking lot with an arm full of kit, they froze to death, within twenty minutes they were done. 

"So," Spencer said, huddling inside his coat. It was so fucking cold. They sky was gray and heavy; Clare kept looking up and saying it looked like snow. "You were really fucking awesome, guys."

"You're a liar," Becca said, curling into his side and tucking her face into his coat. "But don't think we don't appreciate it."

"We're going to cover AvrilLavigne our next tour," Brendon said, coming outside with Gareth, who stopped in the doorway to talk to some girl in a prom dress. Brendon jogged over to where Spencer and the others were standing. Gareth and Brendon had drawn the short straw and had had to stay behind to pick up their trash under the direction of one of Gareth's old teachers. Spencer wasn't ashamed to say he'd run away. "It's going to be awesome."

"It isn't," Spencer complained, but Brendon wrapped his arms around him and Becca, and hugged them both. 

"I talked my sister out of coming over and saying hi," Gareth said, coming over, his hands shoved into his pockets. He bumped elbows with Griff. "She borrowed your CDs once, you remember? She spilt Ribena on it. I thought she might know who you two were, or something. She's loud. If she recognized you, everyone would know within five minutes."

"I remember," Griff said grimly. 

"She bought you a new CD," Gareth said. "After she'd saved up."

"Hmmm," Griff said. 

"Thanks," Spencer said, giving in and hugging Brendon back. The less people that knew that Brendon and Spencer were married—or not—the better. The less chance their wedding—or lack of one—would turn up on the internet, the better. Everything was such a fucking mess.

"I think it's going to snow," Clare said again. "It's cold enough."

They all craned their necks to look up at the sky. Spencer wasn't sure what sky was supposed to look like that was about to snow, but he nodded in what he thought was a knowledgeable way. 

"Right," Gareth said, clapping his hands together and blowing on them for warmth. "Who's up for the pub?"

"Which pub? I'm not going across the road, it'll be full of sixteen year olds." Becca said. "Tom and Daniel said they'd come and join us when they finished work anyway."

"Well," Griff said. "Creepy Valley?"

"Ohhhhh," Gareth said. "Good idea."

"It's miles away," Becca complained.

"Creepy valley, though," Clare said. "Come on. We can play dominoes."

"You're really selling it," Griff said dryly.

"You _are_ going home in a couple of days," Gareth said. Brendon's hands tightened on Spencer's waist, just for a moment. "You can't really go home without going to Creepy Valley."

"Creepy Valley?" Brendon asked. 

"It's not really called Creepy Valley," Gareth said. Spencer didn't say, _duh_. "It's just, well."

"It's a valley, and it's creepy?" Spencer supplied. He rubbed his hands over Brendon's arms in an effort to keep warm. 

"Yep," Gareth agreed. "Got it in one."

Becca grinned. "It's only creepy because it's pitch black and there aren't any street lights. There's just a little lane winding its way through the bottom of the valley, and there are trees everywhere, and owls, and it's totally black."

"And there's the ghost stories," Clare supplied. 

"Awesome," Brendon said. "Are they true?"

"Might be," Griff said. "It's a weird place. Pity you're not here for Hen Galen."

"Yeah!" Becca said. "They don't celebrate new year until the middle of January in the valley," she said. "I teach it to the kids in my class at school, but I don't know how much they take in other than the kids in the valley go house to house and get sweets. I think they're fairly sure it's just trick or treating, but better 'cos it's Welsh."

"How come they don't have new year in December, like everyone else?" Spencer asked. He pressed a kiss to the top of Brendon's head, just because he could. 

"Ah, because they're _special_ ," Becca said. "When everyone else accepted the Gregorian calendar in the eighteenth century and lost eleven days, the valley thought, bugger that, and kept on with their old Julian calendar. Hence, Julian New Year in January."

Spencer suspected that he would have enjoyed history classes a lot more in school if they'd been taught by someone like Becca. "And there's a pub?" 

"Well," Gareth said. "Kind of."

"It's Bessie's front room, really," Clare supplied. "She just has a barrel of beer in the back, she serves it through the hatch, and there are pictures of the Queen on the wall. She's great. Probably about a hundred and five, though."

Spencer imagined roaring fires and comfortable sofas and a little old lady surrounded by photographs of the queen. It was probably the most British thing he could imagine. "Let's go there," he said. He had his camera in the back of the car. He could take pictures. It couldn't be all that dark outside, the moon was pretty full.

"Agreed," Brendon said, voice muffled from where his mouth was pressed up against Spencer's coat. "So long as it's going to be warmer there, I vote yes."

"Great," Gareth said. "We'll leave the van here and pick it up later. We can all fit in the Punto, and you two can follow us."

"I'll go with them in case we get separated," Becca said. "I know how you drive."

Gareth made a face. "Liar," he said but he grinned. "Come on. Before the snow comes."

"You think it's going to snow?" Brendon asked, as they split up into two groups to get into the cars. 

"Looks like it," Becca said. "God, it's cold. Come on, hurry up, let's get in."

The roads to Creepy Valley were seriously fucking tiny; they were the width of the car and no more, barely paved, a high ridge of grass down the middle of the track. High grass banks edged the roads on both sides, and if Spencer hadn't had Becca next to him in the car, Brendon behind him, he would have seriously considered turning back around, because it was pitch fucking black, and it felt a little like they were driving into the hillside, the trees arching above them like a tunnel. Spencer liked the life he had, okay; he didn't particularly want a starring role in Lord of the Rings: The Welsh Road to Mordor. 

Ahead of them, Gareth's tail lights were the only lights, and they were getting further away because Spencer was taking the road at a snail's pace. The road widened after a while, and they turned onto something that was less like a track and more like an actual road. Occasionally they passed cottages, and patches of warm light filtered out from around the curtains. The road started to wind, and the valley flattened out, great banks of trees separated by a twisting river and occasional fields and woods. 

It was really, really creepy. 

And really cold. 

"I think that's snow," Brendon said behind him, peering out the window. "Is it?"

"I think so," Becca agreed. "We'd better only stay for a couple; if you're staying near Dave and Mary's place, then the quickest way back is up the hill, and that's got an incline like a cliff face."

"You're driving back," Spencer said immediately, although he wasn't sure that trusting Brendon with dangerous driving was necessarily the best idea in the world. 

"Awesome," Brendon said. "You think it'll snow enough for a snowball fight?"

"Hopefully," Becca said. 

The road wound its way over tiny bridges over a meandering river and through villages with only a smattering of tiny cottages. Very occasionally, the villages came with a couple of streetlights, but for the most part, they were driving in the dark. Less like L.A., Spencer couldn't imagine. 

"It's up here on the left," Becca said. "Look, Gareth's pulling in. Slow down, we'll see if there's somewhere to park. You might have to go up to the barn up ahead and turn around, you can probably pull up on the verge on the other side."

Spencer nodded and slowed down to a crawl. 

"There's one," Becca said. "Behind that tractor."

Getting out of the car, Spencer looked up and down the road. This was not what Spencer imagined when he'd conjured up an image of a valley pub. Instead of a cozy farmhouse with log fires burning, it was just a house, set right on the road, painted white with a sign above the door. A single electric light hummed by the doorway, and three cars and a tractor were parked up by the side of the lane. 

Brendon slid his hand into Spencer's. "How cool is this?" he asked. Spencer looped his camera around his neck and nodded, locking up the car and stuffing the keys into his pocket. He had considered leaving his coat in the car, but Becca had just laughed and told him to bring it with him. And no wonder, because when they got inside, the pub consisted of a single tiny room, whitewashed, with brown wooden benches around the edge and four little tables. A few extra chairs were scattered around, and on the walls, faded, browning pictures of the queen and a few other people hung above the benches. There was a pin board on one wall, too, with faded clippings attached. At one end of the room was a hatch through to the back room, and through it sat a woman in her fifties, already chatting to Gareth. There was a heater set up in the fireplace by the door.

"This is Elen," Gareth said, beckoning them closer. "This is Brendon, and this is Spencer. They're American. And married."

"Oh," Elen said and then she held her hand out for them to shake. "Not often we get Americans in these parts. And married ones too." She looked them up and down, but with interest rather than anything else. Not anything worse. Spencer couldn't help but think that they'd been lucky in people's reactions to their imaginary wedding.

"Where's Bessie tonight?" Griff asked, watching as Elen shook hands with Brendon and Spencer, and then went back to pouring them all beers from the barrel on the shelf. 

"She'll be back later," Elen said. "You've got me for now. Beer for you, too? Or I've got—" she checked, "cola, lemonade, Orangina, and white wine."

"Beer, please," Brendon said. 

"The same," Spencer nodded. He wanted to take pictures. The room was empty apart from them, and one old guy in the corner, who was asleep but still holding his newspaper. Spencer held up his camera and pointed at the pictures at the wall. "Do you mind?"

"Go ahead," Elen said. "Snap away."

"Is there a bathroom?" Brendon asked, taking hold of his glass of beer. 

"There is," Elen said. "Back out the front door, and down the side there. The bulb's gone, so it's a bit dark. First door's the gents, next one the ladies."

"Okay," Brendon said, only sounding a little dubious. When he came back a few minutes later, he was pink-cheeked from the cold, and still zipping up his coat. He slid onto the bench next to Spencer, and whispered, "That was the scariest fucking thing I've ever done in my life. It's pitch black and you have to feel your way, and I think there's a bat in there. I jumped out of my fucking skin when it swooped."

"Suddenly I'm pretty sure I'll be waiting until we get home to go," Spencer said in an undertone. He grinned, nudging Brendon's beer towards him. "How cool is this place?"

"The coolest," Brendon agreed, taking a drink. "Did you take pictures?"

"All of them," Spencer said. "Apart from one of you. Let me take one of you."

Brendon agreed with a grin, and Spencer took the lens cap off his camera again, holding it up to his eye. Brendon tilted his chin up and rested it on his fingertips; the camera fucking loved him. _Spencer_ fucking loved him. He took picture after picture as Brendon mugged for the camera. 

"You should take one of all of us," Becca said. "Come on, shift up, Brendon. Take one of all of us."

"Brilliant idea," Gareth said. "You can email them to us when you're back home. Shove over, Griff. Get us all in."

Spencer stood up so he could get a better shot: Gareth, Griff, Becca, Clare, Brendon. They leaned into each other, Clare sliding her arms over Brendon and Becca's shoulders. 

"Smile," Spencer said, and he swallowed against the catch in his throat, against the way his heart clenched when he thought about what he'd lose if he had to give this up. About how the fuck he was supposed to go back to the way things were when all he wanted was this. 

He pressed the shutter. 

~*~

They stayed far longer than they'd planned to, two drinks turning into three, into four. Brendon and Gareth gave up after two, switching to Coke instead, maintaining that they weren't going to drive these roads in this weather over the legal drinking limit. Spencer liked the way he could keep going, though, the beer sliding down easily. It got warmer, and he finally unzipped his coat and shrugged it off, leaning into Brendon's side as got comfortable. 

Brendon slung his arm around Spencer's shoulders, and kept on talking to Griff. Griff had got a whole lot more talkative since he'd admitted that he knew who Brendon and Spencer were; Spencer didn't know whether that was a bad thing, or a good thing. He rested his cheek against Brendon's shoulder and listened in to Gareth and Becca arguing about politics instead. Spencer didn't have a clue about British politics, although he thought he could probably name the Prime Minister if he had to. Any more than that and he'd be scrabbling. Finishing high school by correspondence had its upsides, but he couldn't call his overall lack of general knowledge one of them. Spencer knew a lot about certain things, and he found the Wikipedia vortex as interesting as the next person, especially when he was stoned, but he wasn't all that great at anything particularly relevant. Instead he listened, feeling the hum of Brendon's voice as he touched his nose to Brendon's throat, listening to Becca and Gareth talk, and Clare talking to Elen in the corner. 

He closed his eyes. 

He woke up with a start, sitting up and saying "What—" really loudly, while everyone looked at him and laughed. "Shut up," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Fuck, why didn't anyone wake me?" He blushed. He'd never fallen asleep in a bar before. "Brendon, why didn't _you_ wake me?"

"Because you're cute when you're asleep," Brendon said, kind of evasively.

Spencer couldn't help but flush. Fuck, he didn't want this to end. He really, really didn't want this to end. 

He slid his hand over Brendon's knee, and Brendon ducked his head, covering Spencer's hand with his own. 

"Tom and Daniel say they're not coming 'cos of the snow," Clare said, holding her phone up and doing the dance of no signal. Brendon had once choreographed the moves to the dance of no signal, and had drunkenly instructed Spencer in the routine. They'd been stuck on the bus somewhere in the middle of nowhere, with no signal and no wifi and a ton of alcohol. 

That had been a fucking awesome night. The hangover had been awful. 

"How bad's the snow?" Spencer asked. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but he suspected that there were fresh drinks on the table. The guy in the corner with the newspaper had gone, so it was just them. He could hear the television in the room beyond the hatch. 

"Bad enough that we should think about going," Gareth said, with a frown. "Come on, I don't want to get stuck pushing cars up that hill. Drink up."

Spencer kept his hand in Brendon's and didn't let go. 

When they spilled outside into the lane, it couldn't have been more different to when they'd gone inside. Everything was bathed in a strangely luminescent glow, the snow making everything look like they'd stepped out onto a movie set, only a hundred times colder. Spencer's nose and cheeks were already freezing, even as he tugged on his gloves, Brendon plastered to his side. Snow hung from the trees, the branches weighed down by it all. Everything was eerily quiet; the only sound came from them as they stepped out into the street. 

It was really, really fucking beautiful. Spencer wanted to take a hundred pictures. He was already uncapping his lens and holding up his camera to take shot after shot after shot as the snow still fell.

"Come on," Gareth said, after a couple of minutes. "It's coming down fast again, and we need to get to the main road if we don't want to get stuck. I reckon we've got about another ten minutes before we won't be able to get up the hill."

Spencer gave up taking pictures regretfully, hurrying back to the car. They were going to follow Gareth, Griff and Clare again, Becca travelling with them, and then they'd bundle Becca into the other car once they got near to where Brendon and Spencer would branch off to go back to the cottage. 

Spencer climbed into the back seat, letting Becca take the front as Brendon cheerfully started the engine. "I have no fucking idea how to drive in snow," Brendon admitted, revving the engine. "Sorry if I kill you all."

"Apology accepted," Becca said. "Hey, no. Look, depress the clutch. It reduces the drag on the engine. And avoid high revs." She looked apologetic. "My mum and dad own a garage," she said. "I learnt from the best. I'm always dead popular at parties. Basically, Brendon, don't go too fast as you'll lose control, but don't go too slow either, as you'll lose your momentum. If you skid, take your foot off the pedal and steer. Don't rely on the brake."

"Got it," Brendon said. Spencer suspected Becca thought he hadn't, but he wasn't going to say anything. Brendon was safer than people gave him credit for. Spencer trusted him. 

He trusted him even more when they set off carefully, the snow creaking beneath their tires as they rolled down the street. 

When Gareth turned right off the lane and started off up the stupidly steep valley side, though, Spencer decided he wasn't going to trust _him_ anymore. "We're going to die," he said loudly. "Gareth is trying to kill us."

"Shut up," Brendon said grimly. "Fuck, is Spencer right? Are we going to die?"

"It's just this one hill," Becca said, although she didn't look all that convinced that they were doing the right thing, going up this steep hill in the snow. Spencer couldn't even concentrate on how beautiful everything was in the snow, because all he could see was Gareth up above them, taking the hairpin bend at a snail's pace. "When we get to the top, it's mostly across the top."

"The top of what?" Spencer asked, but Becca didn't answer him. 

"Careful," she said, to Brendon. "Swing that way, just a bit. That's right."

 _Going to die going to die going to die_ , Spencer thought, somewhat hysterically. He could see the hillside falling away to the right of him, leading steeply down to the back of the house they'd just been in. The road was single-car-width. 

"What happens if we meet a car coming the other way?" he asked. 

"That won't happen," Brendon said. "Shut up."

Spencer shut up. Brendon's knuckles were white on the steering wheel. 

It was the longest five minutes of Spencer's life. When they got to the top, and back onto the flat road, Brendon brought the car to a stop. "Fuck," he said. Then he laughed, breathless. "You're driving next time."

"No," Spencer said. "Next time we sleep in the bar."

"I'm with you," Brendon agreed. Ahead of them, Gareth's tail lights were red as he slowed to a stop, waiting for them. Brendon squared his shoulders. "Okay, let's go."

The rest of the journey was uneventful in comparison. The lane wound its way across open countryside, the odd sheep huddled in the lee of a wall to avoid the snow. 

"There are wild horses, sometimes," Becca told them, shifting in her seat. "We were driving back here last summer, can't remember why, and there was a giant fuck-off badger in the middle of the road. It just sat there and looked at us, so we sat there and looked back. It was _huge_."

"Wow," Spencer said, staring out the window at the endless hillsides, sloping away into the distance. "Never seen a badger."

"They're _fierce_ ," Becca said. "They're not cuddly at all, I've no idea why J.K. Rowling thought that they should be the face of Hufflepuff. I always thought Hufflepuff should be something less—I don't know. Less violent, and less scary. And possibly with less tuberculosis."

"Right," Spencer said. "Of course."

In the mirror, Brendon caught his eye and gave a ghost of a wink. It made Spencer feel warm deep down inside. He stared out of the window instead, and covered his mouth with the back of his hand to hide his smile. 

It took a while to get back to the main road, which had been gritted, and then a while longer to get to where Brendon and Spencer needed to turn off to get to their cottage. Gareth pulled over by the side of the road, and climbed out of the car. Brendon pulled in behind him, and killed the engine. 

"So," Becca said. "Is this it? I don't think we're going to see each other again, are we?"

Spencer's breath caught in his throat. Everything was coming to an end: the vacation, their new friendships, him and Brendon. He climbed out of the car instead of replying. 

"That was great, right?" Gareth said, grinning and coming over. 

"No, that was terrifying," Spencer said. 

"My boyfriend has weird adrenaline issues," Griff said, coming over. "Hey," he said, when Gareth made a face and went red. "If Brendon and Spencer can get married, then I can man the fuck up and ask you out."

"Right on," Brendon said, but he didn't meet Spencer's eye. Spencer suspected he felt just as shitty about all of this as Spencer did. Spencer toed at the snow. 

"Group hug," Clare said, stumbling over and wrapping her arms around Becca and Brendon's shoulders. "It's bloody freezing out here. You'll all freeze your knackers off if we stay out here much longer."

"That's Clare's polite way of saying she wants to go home," Becca added. 

"We got that," Spencer said. There was a lot of hugging, and a lot of promises to keep in touch that Spencer wasn't sure he could keep, and then Gareth drew Spencer off to one side and gave him a hug. 

"I think you and Brendon are brilliant," he said. "I mean it. Getting married when you can't tell your family, and when you're well known—being who you are. It's really brave. You're both really brave, and it's been a real pleasure. You're so fucking happy together."

Spencer couldn't breathe. "I really love him," he said, all of a sudden, apropos of nothing at all. He just knew that if he didn't say it here, _now_ , to these people who'd seen them together, then he'd never get to say it. "I love him so much." He was drunk, he knew that, but it wasn't that—it was just that everything was coming to an end, and afterwards, when they got home, no one would ever know that it had happened. 

"I know," Gareth said. "Anyone who looks at you knows." He clapped a hand to Spencer's shoulder, and looked back at the others. "You two should leave the car here and walk down the lane. It could be lethal down there now. May as well leave it up here and get it in the morning."

Brendon looked at Spencer. "Yeah?" he said, and Spencer nodded. Together they stood by the side of the road and waved as the others all drove off in Gareth's car, everyone waving madly. 

"So," Brendon said, when the car was out of sight, and there was silence again, and nothing but the two of them and the snow. 

"Yeah," Spencer said, and reached for Brendon's hand. He was taking every single moment of this that he could. "Let's go home."

~*~

Later, when they were wrapped up warm in bed with the covers pulled up around them like a cocoon, Spencer shifted so that he had his hand pressed to Brendon's stomach, under his shirt, and his nose pressed to the back of Brendon's neck. 

He knew that Brendon wasn't asleep either, but neither of them moved. 

_Tomorrow_ , Spencer thought. _Tomorrow's our last day._


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's their last night, and Spencer doesn't want it to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta by the lovely hermette.

"Hey," Brendon said, holding up a purple candle. "Come smell this, do you think my mom would like one of these?"

Spencer put down the tiny clay candle snuffer he'd been considering getting for his mom and wandered over to the other side of the candle workshop, to where Brendon was holding up four different colored candles out for Spencer to sniff. Spencer dutifully smelled each of them and then pointed to the blue one. "That one."

"You think?" Brendon sniffed it and made a face. "Are you sure?"

"It's your mom, dude," he said, shrugging. "That's my favorite, though."

"I'll buy it for you, then," Brendon said, grinning. He unhooked a couple of candles from the rack, and put them in his tiny basket. 

Spencer swallowed, managing half a smile, and slid his hand into the small of Brendon's back, just for a moment. "I'm going upstairs," he said. "I'll see you in a minute."

They were in a tiny candle workshop, higher up in the same valley that they'd visited the previous night on their trip to Bessie's pub, but everything looked different in the daylight. There was still snow on the ground, but most of it had melted, which meant that driving the tiny, narrow lanes wasn't as big of a death wish as Spencer had anticipated. It also meant doing a last minute rush around for souvenirs to take back with them wasn't going to end in their imminent demise, which Spencer counted as a plus. 

Dave and Mary had suggested this candle place, when they'd had breakfast together that morning and Brendon had let slip they still had a million Christmas presents and souvenirs to buy. Mary had called up to make sure they'd be open when Spencer and Brendon got there, because apparently they were a seasonal business only and didn't open up regularly outside of the tourist season. That made no sense at all to Spencer, who thought that deliberately missing out on selling in the holiday period seemed like a particularly stupid idea. 

"They'll open up for you if you want to go, though," Mary had pointed out. 

That didn't sound like good business sense to Spencer, but he'd mostly changed his mind whenthey'd arrived. The workshop was attached to a house, and the couple who owned both seemed very friendly, and very well wrapped up against the freezing weather. Spencer suspected that they got very specific traffic, located as they were in a village of three houses and a tiny pub, a few miles off the main road. All of the candles were handmade, and they hung in pairs over great wooden beams that ran the length of the workshop ceiling. He had no idea how old the building was, but it felt really fucking old. 

Upstairs was a gallery, mostly housing candelabras and the odd piece of artwork, but Spencer couldn't stop staring at the metalwork that covered the whole of one wall. It was incredible. He fingered an iron wall sconce, which looked like something out of a Robin Hood movie, but the piece he couldn't take his eyes off was a large steel dragon. It hung right in the middle of the wall, a burnished steel version of the Welsh dragon, breathing fire. 

"That's amazing," Brendon said, hooking his chin over Spencer's shoulder. Spencer hadn't even heard him come up the stairs. 

"Right?" Spencer said. 

Brendon slid his arm around Spencer's waist, and Spencer covered his hand with his own. Everything felt so fragile today, like they both knew that things were coming to an end, and tomorrow they had to figure out how the hell to go back to the way things were without screwing up what they had. Spencer wasn't sure he _could_. It felt like his heart was getting ready to break right in two. "You should get it," Brendon said. 

"How will we get it home?"

Brendon shrugged, his mouth brushing Spencer's neck. "We'll pay excess baggage."

"It's beautiful," Spencer acknowledged, reaching out a finger to touch it. He had no idea how someone made something like this, made a sheet of steel breathe fire. "It'd be a pain in the ass, getting it home."

"Do you want it?" Brendon asked. He'd been like this all day, in each of the stores they'd been to. They'd been to the Blue Mountain chocolate shop before this, and aside from buying chocolates for everyone in their families, Brendon had come out with a box the size of his head for Spencer. He'd said, _it's the holidays,_ and looked the other way when Spencer had questioned it. Spencer figured it was hard for Brendon too, trying to negotiate the step back to being just friends. He'd come out of the clothes shop earlier with a bag that looked decidedly bigger than the pile he'd taken to the register, too. 

Spencer wished that buying Brendon a gift was as easy, but every time he tried to think about it, he just kept coming up blank. 

"It's awesome," Spencer said. He tried to imagine it on his wall, but all he could think about was that he was living with Brendon, and it wasn't his wall, it was _Brendon's_ , and how could he go back to living with him and not having _this_? He resolved to talk to Brendon about it when they got back home to L.A., if it even vaguely looked like Brendon might be up for taking it further. 

"I'm going to go tell her that I want it," Brendon said decidedly, going back toward the steps. 

"Hey," Spencer said. "You can't keep buying stuff for me. I'll buy it."

Something flickered on Brendon's face, but it was gone too quickly for Spencer to make heads or tail of what it meant. "Sure," Brendon said. "Whatever. I just wanted to make sure you actually took it home, that's all. I've seen that look in your eyes before, you know. You want it."

"Yeah," Spencer said, swallowing. 

Brendon smiled lopsidedly and went back downstairs. 

Spencer shut his eyes for a moment, and tried to remember how to breathe.

~*~

"Are we still going out for dinner tonight?" Brendon asked, as Spencer tried to get the large dragon shaped package into the trunk of the car. 

Spencer cleared his throat. "Yeah," he said. He'd booked a table at a place Becca had recommended. A last night blow out. A date by any other name. He couldn't look at Brendon. "Have you bought everything you wanted to? We should go home and get ready to go soon."

Brendon nodded. "I'm all done. Christmas is fixed up." He elbowed Spencer. It was already pretty dark. "Do you want to go down to the beach first? See the ocean one last time?"

For some weird, fucked up reason, Spencer felt breathless. "Yeah," he said, concentrating on the dragon package. "You drive."

"Awesome," Brendon said and leaned in to kiss Spencer on the cheek. 

It took them a while to get down to the beach; while the snow had mostly melted, there was still slush on a lot of the tiny lanes, and the busier roads were moving a little slower than usual. Brendon turned the stereo up loud, the radio signal dipping in and out as he sang along with an old Meatloaf song. The choice of radio stations got less and less, the closer to the beach they got. 

"Come on," Brendon said. "Don't pretend you don't love the 'Loaf. Sing it, bro."

"You're such a fucking ass," Spencer said, rolling his eyes, but he turned the volume up even louder and sang _I would do anything for love, but I won't do that,_ just as loud as Brendon was. 

Brendon laughed and then launched into the girl part, belting out _Will you raise me up? Will you help me down?_ "We should cover the 'Loaf. Next tour."

"Sure," Spencer agreed, hoping that Brendon would forget by the time it came to talking about covers, and then they both launched into _I can do that_ and Brendon almost missed the turn-off to the beach. 

It was dark by the time they got to the parking lot and, unsurprisingly, theirs was the only car there. The moon provided the only light, silvery and strangely luminescent in the darkness. 

"Come on," Brendon said, as the noise of the engine faded to nothing. "Let's go see the ocean."

"This is crazy," Spencer told him, taking off his seatbelt and opening the door. "It's freezing."

"Your face is crazy," Brendon said, jumping out of the car. He ducked back inside just to grin at Spencer. "Come on, it's an adventure."

"It's _freezing_ ," Spencer complained, climbing out and closing the door behind him. The wind coming off the ocean was like fucking ice hitting his skin. "Oh, fuck."

"It's good for you," Brendon told him, grabbing Spencer's gloved hand in his. "Come on, race you there."

"The _snow_ ," Spencer said, but Brendon was already dragging him down towards the beach, where the snow stood cold and pale against the rocks, and the waves rolled relentlessly against the sand. It was spooky, and kind of beautiful, and so cold it made Spencer's bones ache. "Come here," he said, as Brendon tugged him over the sand to the water's edge. 

Brendon just laughed. "Come _here_ instead," he said, drawing Spencer in. 

Spencer let himself be tugged closer. "It's so cold," he said, because otherwise he was just going to stare at Brendon in the moonlight, and want more than he thought he could have. 

"Let me warm you up," Brendon said, waggling his eyebrows, and then Brendon was cupping Spencer's face in his gloved hands, and he was kissing him. 

Spencer whined helplessly against Brendon's mouth, and kissed him back. All he could think was _last night, last night, last night_. Tomorrow they'd be going home and Spencer didn't know if they'd ever get to do this again. He just—he wanted this so much, but they had a _band_ together. This was their career, and their financial stability, and their work. Having a vacation fling was one thing, but it wasn't like they didn't both know what it was like to work in an environment where things weren't going right. They both knew what it was like to lose friends over their band, and Spencer wasn't sure he could cope with losing Brendon too. He didn't know whether he'd rather have Brendon as just a friend, rather than risk screwing it all up and going all out for a relationship that didn't work and fucked everything up. All he did know was that he was in love with him; anything further down the line just felt like a shadowy blur, the unknown. He kissed Brendon back, the sound of the waves in his ears, and tried to ignore everything else just for one more night. 

"Fuck, it's freezing," Brendon said, burrowing his hands under Spencer's coat. "My dick is going to freeze up and drop off."

"This was your idea," Spencer pointed out, but he wrapped his arms around Brendon's shoulders anyway, drawing him in to a tight hug. 

If he could just figure out a way of remembering the way Brendon smelled right now.

"I'm very attached to my dick," Brendon told him. "And right now it's barely a dick at all, it's so cold."

"That's your way of saying we should go back home, right?"

"Got it in one," Brendon said. He looked out to sea. "This place is really fucking beautiful, Spence."

"Yeah," Spencer agreed. 

"I'm really glad we came," Brendon went on. "And hey, we made a good vacation pretty great by adding in all of the sex, right?"

"Pretty great, yeah," Spencer echoed, kind of weakly. He swallowed. "We should get going. We need to get ready, and I don't know how long it's going to take us to get to this place Becca suggested."

"Oh, sure," Brendon said. He looked a little awkward in the moonlight. 

Spencer managed a smile, and slid his hand into Brendon's. "Come on," he said. "We don't want to be late for the reservation."

"No," Brendon said, and they set off back to the car, turning around on the slope up to the parking lot to take one last look. 

"It's beautiful here," Spencer said softly, and next to him, Brendon nodded and squeezed Spencer's hand. 

~*~

The place Becca had recommended for their date was about forty-five minutes' drive inland. It was all down main roads, so they didn't have to be worried about the fact that there was a distinct possibility that snow looked imminent, or that they were going to get trapped driving down tiny windy country lanes and miss their flights tomorrow. Instead, they spent the journey rocking out to the local radio station, which mostly seemed to play nineties Britpop. Not that either of them was calling this a date out loud, but Spencer was, in his head. He thought that he could pretend for one more day that this was real, and then he'd figure out a way to make everything right later. 

"This place is called _The Ship_ ," Brendon pointed out as Spencer parked up in the parking lot by the side of the restaurant.

"Yes," Spencer said. 

"We're kind of a long way from the ocean, dude. You know, for this to be called _The Ship_."

"Maybe it's a rowboat with delusions of grandeur," Spencer suggested. "Maybe it has oceanic delusions."

"Don't we all," Brendon said nonsensically, and then he leaned over and kissed Spencer on the corner of his mouth. "Come on."

The Ship was an Indian restaurant with the lowest ceilings Spencer could remember seeing. Even he had to duck his head to avoid the exposed beams, and he wasn't exactly the tallest dude to ever tall. Still, they had a table in the corner, with a heavy wine-colored tablecloth and complimentary poppodoms and pickles already lined up for them. 

"I'll bring you a carafe of water," the waiter said. "Can I get you any drinks?"

Spencer ran his finger down the wine list. "Do you want wine?" he asked. Brendon made a face, and Spencer grinned. "Okay, beer it is. I want, wow, I want Cobra beer."

"Me too," Brendon said, and when the waiter asked them whether they wanted small or large, both of them went large without any hesitation. 

Under the table, Brendon curled his foot around Spencer's, all without taking his eyes off the menu. 

Spencer swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, and fumbled the drink menu as he passed it back to the waiter. 

Brendon shot him a look, and smiled kind of hesitantly, as if Spencer was going to say that it wasn't okay. Spencer nudged his foot back against Brendon's under the table instead, and Brendon started to blush, his cheeks going pink. He ducked his gaze as the waiter went away, and Spencer leaned over and covered Brendon's hand with his own. 

"All of this is on me, okay?" he said. "My treat."

"You don't have to do that." 

"I know." Spencer swallowed, looking back down at his menu. He figured if he could focus on the biryanis and the baltis then he wouldn't blurt out something stupid, like _I love you_. "What do you think you're going to pick?"

"I don't know," Brendon said, and Spencer wondered if the menu was as much of a blur to Brendon as it was to him. It didn't matter how much he looked at it, it all seemed to blur into one. He didn't care what he ordered. He wasn't even hungry. He curled his fingers into Brendon's instead, and Brendon looked at him, something that Spencer desperately wanted to be hope flaring in his eyes. 

Spencer swallowed. "I think I'm going to get—" he looked down the menu before picking out the first thing he focused on, "king prawn dopiaza. Why don't they just call it shrimp?"

"Don't know," Brendon said. "I'm going to have the—" he seemed to be employing the same meal picking routine as Spencer, "—the lamb jalfrezi. With rice. And the naan with the coconut. And let's share one of these appetizers for two." He pointed at the menu with his finger, and Spencer leaned in to take a closer look at what he was choosing. He was close enough that he could feel Brendon's breath against his ear. 

He let out a breath. "You smell nice," he said, sitting back up. He glanced at Brendon again, at the pink flush slowly spreading across his cheeks. 

"Yeah, well," Brendon said. "So do you."

This was so stupid. They were so stupid. Spencer had all of these _feelings_ , and they were all trapped up inside of him and he couldn't let them out. He couldn't tell Brendon, because this whole vacation seemed like it was founded on a spider's web of lines they were trying to balance on. They'd been through a band split _twice_ ; Spencer suspected that they were both equally nervous of making it through a third. If this wasn't going to be a long-term, pretty-much-forever kind of a thing, then maybe it wasn't worth risking everything over. They were living together, and working together, and maybe adding sleeping together to the mix would inevitably end in a bad place. Spencer wanted this to be so much more than the fling it currently was, but if Brendon was even vaguely casual about any potential future relationship, then Spencer was going to have to think carefully about whether he could agree to it. 

He almost rolled his eyes. Who was he kidding? There was no way he'd turn down whatever Brendon offered him, whatever form it took. Whether they emerged unscathed at the other end of it, that was the question. And it wasn't outside of the realm of possibility that Brendon wouldn't _want_ anything else to happen between them after their vacation was over.

"Two large Cobras?" the waiter asked, hovering by the table with a napkin over one arm and a tray containing two sweating bottles of beer in his hand.

"Got it in one," Brendon said with an awkward attempt at a laugh. He closed his menu, and Spencer echoed him, waiting for their order to be taken. 

Afterwards, when the waiter had gone and they were left alone with just their two beers and the tray of poppodoms between them, Spencer caught Brendon's eye. 

"It's been a pretty awesome vacation, hasn't it?"

"Yeah," Brendon said. He tucked his hand into Spencer's elbow, awkward yet strangely intimate, and Spencer found his mouth going dry as Brendon shifted a little closer. "The best."

"And Wales is amazing," Spencer added. He sounded so stupid. He just couldn't think of anything sensible to say. "The scenery—"

"I _know_ ," Brendon said, cutting him off. "Right?"

They looked at each other, and back down at the table. Spencer couldn't remember ever really feeling at a loss for words around Brendon; it was weird, and not in a good way. Everything he thought of saying, it all felt like _I love you_ against his tongue. 

"I wanted to eat everything on the menu," Brendon went on, laughing the kind of awkward laugh Spencer hadn't heard directed towards him since before the last split, when Brendon hadn't been as certain that Spencer was going to leave with him as Spencer had been. 

"Me too." It was so fucking awkward, and Spencer couldn't figure out why. He and Brendon had whiled away _years_ of their lives just wasting time and talking, and they'd never run short of conversation before. It wasn't something that they did. 

Brendon cleared his throat. "If I just came out and told you how much I wanted to fuck you right now, would that ruin the conversation?"

"It'd start it, I think," Spencer said. He covered Brendon's hand with his own. His heart felt like it was trapped in his throat. "I'm pretty sure you should tell me exactly what you're thinking, though."

Brendon colored, but then he grinned, and laughed. "All of it?" he asked. 

"All of it," Spencer said, leaning back so that their waiter could put the large plate of appetizers down on the table between them. Spencer recognized the onion bhajis, but not the weirdly yellow dipping sauce next to them. He checked the menu again; the rest of the plate was supposed to be lamb samosas, chicken pakoras, and alootikki. He didn't bother trying to match up what he was picking up with the menu, for once, picking at random and dipping whatever he'd picked up into one of the bowls of dipping sauces. It tasted amazing, but for once in his life, Spencer wasn't that interested in food. 

"This one is good," Brendon said, holding out half of a samosa. He dipped it in the weirdly sweet yellow sauce, and held it out again. "Try it."

Spencer leaned in and took a bite, right out of Brendon's fingers. 

"Nice," he said, chewing. He felt strangely breathless, ducking his head so that he could wipe his mouth and clear his head, just for a second. 

"What about that one you just had?" Brendon prompted. "Was that good?"

"The best," Spencer said, trying to remember what it was he'd just eaten. He picked up another one at random, dipping it in the bowl of sweet mango sauce and holding it up. He cupped his hand underneath it to catch the drips. One ran down his thumb. "Try it."

Brendon leaned in and licked at Spencer's thumb. 

Spencer's breath caught in his throat.

"Yeah," Brendon said softly, "the best." 

Spencer closed his eyes. _I'm so fucked_ , he thought. _I'm so fucked_. 

They barely finished the appetizers, picking one piece up after another and then discarding it after a bite. It was all really good, but Spencer found himself more interested in looking at Brendon than he was in eating. Brendon seemed to be the same at least, and when the waiter came to clear their plates away, they were both quick to say how good it tasted, despite how much was still left on the tray. 

Spencer felt hot all over. "I've going to go find the bathroom," he said. "Be back in a minute." As he stood up, he touched at Brendon's shoulder with his palm, managing half a smile. He felt so unsure of himself all of a sudden. This whole week he'd felt like he wasn't in control of himself, and Spencer normally hated that feeling. He wasn't actually all that good at change, if he was honest with himself, so part of the reason he felt so weird was probably because this whole week he'd _liked_ the way things had panned out, the way things had always been so uncertain and new and exciting. 

In the bathroom, he splashed water on his face and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He barely recognized himself; he looked punch drunk and like he'd fallen in love with his best friend. 

He looked kind of screwed. 

He dried his face on a paper towel, and dropped it in the trash can before heading back into the restaurant. 

Their food had arrived by the time he got back to the table. Brendon was dipping his naan bread into his curry sauce, scooping it up quick to avoid getting it down his shirt. When Spencer sat down, Brendon leaned over and pressed a kiss to the corner of Spencer's mouth, sweet and spicy. 

"Tastes good," he said, and Brendon dropped his naan back down onto his plate so he could lean in for another kiss. 

Spencer didn't give a fuck who saw them together. He kissed him like this was their last night, their last time, their last meal together. He curled his hands into Brendon's hair and kissed him again, over and over. 

"Should we go?" he asked, breathless, after a minute. He hadn't even started his main course. 

"Yeah," Brendon said. He was already fumbling in his pocket for his wallet. "Let's just pay the bill and go."

They didn't manage to leave as easily as all that; the manager insisted that they take their food with them, convinced that they were being made to leave against their will due to some family emergency or such. They had to wait while he packaged their food up in foil take out containers, tucking in a paper bag with their poppodoms in down the side of the bag. 

Brendon slid his hand into Spencer's, and leaned his head against Spencer's shoulder as Spencer batted Brendon's wallet away. He was going to pay for this, not Brendon. Even if they'd only managed to eat half of a plate of appetizers, and had completely failed at the main course, this was his treat.

The restaurant manager didn't bat an eyelid, but he did put in a handful of business cards into the bag. "For your friends," he said. "Tell them about _The Ship_." 

"Sure," Brendon said. 

Spencer nodded too, even though he wasn't that sure his L.A. friends would find that much use for a Welsh Indian restaurant business card. 

"It was really great," Brendon reiterated. "We just have to—" He glanced at Spencer. "We have to go."

"Enjoy the food," the manager said. "Tell your friends!"

"We will," Brendon said, and then they were outside in the freezing parking lot, frost on the ground, and their breath freezing in front of them. 

"Kiss me," Spencer said breathlessly. Brendon was shivering already, and tugging Spencer towards the car. Spencer let himself be tugged, because Brendon was tangling his hands in Spencer's coat lapels and leaning in to be kissed, even as he walked Spencer backwards towards the car. 

"Sorry about the meal," Brendon apologized, in between kisses. Spencer fumbled with the bag of food, putting it on the roof of the car as he backed Brendon into the door, cupping Brendon's cheek in his hand. "I know you wanted us to eat out."

"We can eat in instead," Spencer told him, kissing him again. Brendon still tasted sweet and kind of spicy, and it made him want to lick at Brendon's lips until he could make himself remember how he tasted. 

"Awesome idea," Brendon said. "Let's go."

"In a minute," Spencer said. He licked at Brendon's lips. 

"I'm freezing to death," Brendon pointed out, "and when we get home we can have sex."

Spencer pulled away. "Dude," he said. "Why are you cockblocking us? Get in the car, there's sex to be had."

"You're such a dork," Brendon told him affectionately, punching Spencer in the arm. 

"Get in the car," Spencer said, grabbing the bag of food so they didn't drive off and leave it on the roof. "Come the fuck on."

Brendon grinned, and pulled open the car door. 

~*~

"So, I've been thinking," Brendon said from half up the stairs. He was unzipping his coat and tugging at his sweater all at the same time, getting caught up in all of his zippers and buttons. Spencer fumbled with his shoelaces, hisfingers numb with cold. Unpicking the knots, he loosened the laces enough that he could kick his boots off. He started undoing his jeans without bothering to take off his coat. 

"What?" he said breathlessly. 

"I want to see your face when I fuck you," Brendon said. 

Spencer fell over his feet, and only stopped himself from making an embarrassing faceplant on the hall floor by grabbing at the pinecone-shaped knob at the end of the bannister with his other hand. 

"Kinky," Brendon said. 

"Shut up," Spencer said. His face burned. "Can we—" he said. "I'd be on my back?"

"Yeah," Brendon said. He paused for a moment, and then tugged his shirt over his head. "Is that—can we?"

"Yeah," Spencer breathed and shrugged off his jeans. He was already hard; there was a tiny damp patch on the front of his underwear. He pulled down his underwear, cupping his dick in his hand and giving it an experimental jerk. 

"Get naked," Brendon told him, trying to climb the stairs and take his jeans off, all at the same time. 

Spencer hopped on one foot, trying to get his sock off, and then hopped on to his other foot. He felt weird, jumping around with his dick out, but when he looked up, Brendon was watching him with heat in his eyes. 

"Come on," Brendon said, naked on the stairs, and Spencer wanted, oh _fuck_ , he wanted. 

He pulled off his shirt and followed Brendon up the stairs, catching him in the tiny hallway and pushing him back against the wall, hand curving over Brendon's ass. 

Brendon whined, going up onto his toes so that Spencer had a better angle, and Spencer fingered Brendon's ass, mouth pressed to Brendon's jaw. 

"Oh, fuck, _yes_ ," Brendon gasped, head tipping back. "Yes, you're so fucking good at this."

Spencer rubbed his fingertip over Brendon's hole. His brain was screaming _last time, last time_ at him, over and over. He wanted to do everything, stay up all night, fuck Brendon and have him fuck him back. He wanted to taste him everywhere. He dragged his mouth down Brendon's throat, tilting Brendon's chin up so he could get a better angle. 

"Don't stop," Brendon managed, one hand sliding into Spencer's hair, the other scrabbling for purchase against the flowered wallpaper. 

_Never_ , Spencer thought, and he let Brendon cup his face in his hands, and draw Spencer in for a kiss. 

"Come on," Brendon said after a while, taking Spencer's hand. "I want to do this on a bed, and not in a _hallway_."

Spencer swallowed. "Yeah," he said and followed Brendon into the bedroom. 

Brendon pulled the comforter back, and swept their pajamas down and onto the floor. He kissed Spencer's cheek. "Lie down."

"On my back?" 

"If you want to," Brendon said, going around to the other side of the bed to get the condoms and the lotion out of the nightstand drawer. 

Spencer nodded and fixed the pillows before lying down on the bed. He saved one to go under his hips. He'd never tried this before, but he figured that this was kind of how it was supposed to go. He wrapped his fist around his dick for a moment as he got himself comfortable. 

"Hot," Brendon said, and he grinned before kneeling on the bed next to Spencer, and leaning in to kiss him. Spencer tugged Brendon down even closer and kissed him again, deeper this time, so that Brendon groaned into Spencer's mouth and Spencer couldn't breathe. 

Then Brendon wrapped his hand around Spencer's hand, around Spencer's dick, and his palm was slippery with lotion. The lube here was really weird, or at least the brand they bought was. It was a lot more like lotion than it was like gel, which was the kind Spencer had recently been using at home. This one was slippery and wet and smelled vaguely like cucumber, under the chemicals. He was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to smell like a salad vegetable.

Spencer rocked his hips up into Brendon's fist and whined, unable to help himself. 

"You like that?" Brendon asked. 

Spencer nodded, in between kissing Brendon again, and then Brendon slid his hand lower, sliding down over Spencer's balls and squeezing. That was—it felt amazing. Spencer felt amazing. He felt like he was on fire, and they hadn't even started properly yet. This was just the build-up. 

"Legs apart," Brendon said, ghosting a kiss over Spencer's cheek, and shifting so that he was kneeling over Spencer. He slid his hand down between Spencer's legs, fingers stroking over Spencer's hole, and this was so sexy, and so intimate, and Spencer couldn't—he just couldn't. 

"Please," he begged. "Please."

Brendon pressed the tip of his finger inside of Spencer, and then the tip of a second finger. Spencer whined again, desperate for more. He didn't care about being ready, or being prepared. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was _this_ , was Brendon, was tonight. 

"Fuck me," he gasped, reaching out to circle Brendon's wrist with his hand. "Please, I'm ready, do it."

"Fuck, are you sure?" Brendon's dick was so fucking hard, and it was so pretty. 

There was an actual physical sense of loss when Brendon stopped fingering Spencer open, and concentrated on rolling the condom over his erection and reaching for the lotion. 

"Let me," Spencer said, holding his hand out. 

Brendon squeezed some out onto Spencer's palm, and Spencer wrapped his hand around Brendon's dick, making sure he was slick all the way down. 

"Ready?" Brendon asked breathlessly. 

"Yeah," Spencer said and took a deep breath as he felt the slick tip of Brendon's dick press against his ass. 

"Oh, fuck," Brendon groaned, pushing inside of Spencer on one long, loud exhale. "Fuck, Spencer."

"More," Spencer begged, shifting on the sheets to get a better angle. They were new to this, both of them, and it was hard to get the perfect angle, especially when he couldn't help but shift so that he could meet Brendon's mouth in a desperate, messy kiss. His brain was shouting _want, want, want, need_ over and over again and there was nothing else inside of him, nothing except how he felt at this moment—in love, and full, and like nothing he'd ever done before in his life could have prepared him for this moment. 

He jerked his own dick, and his muscles were starting to ache from the way he was twisting up to meet Brendon's kiss with his own, but he couldn't care. He didn't want to think about anything after tonight. 

"I'm inside you," Brendon said, sounding vaguely like this was something wondrous and new, and not something they'd done over and over this vacation. It was only the position that they hadn't done before. It was only this—getting to see each other's faces—that was new. 

"Fuck me," Spencer begged, fingertips pressing into Brendon's skin. They might bruise, later, but Brendon didn't tell him to stop. He was holding onto Spencer just as tight.

Brendon fucked into him, slow and hard, and Spencer cried out, desperate for more. His orgasm was already starting to curl in his belly, sweat beading on his forehead as Brendon caught Spencer's bottom lip in his teeth. 

He thought, _I love you_ , and Brendon's fingers tightened around his wrist. Spencer jerked himself off, the time for conversation long gone. He couldn't remember words, let alone form them into sentences. He just wanted more, always more, and Brendon caught his mouth in a kiss, swallowing Spencer's words whole, giving him what he wanted with every rock of his hips. It was so fucking desperate, and so hot, and he knew that it was their last time, that this was their last night, and it just made him want to hold on tighter. 

It made him want to never let go. 

"Gonna come," Spencer managed, in between kisses, a thread of saliva joining their mouths together. It was messy and wet and Spencer just—he just _couldn't_. He tried to hold off, to make it last longer, but he couldn't, and he came. 

His come hit Brendon's stomach in stripes, and Spencer watched in desperation as Brendon's stomach contracted as he tipped his head, his muscles clenching as he tried to hold off from coming just that little bit longer. 

Spencer couldn't breathe. He couldn't even think. He tried to catch his breath, hot and sweaty and unable to process any thought at all that wasn't _Brendon_. "Come," he begged, hands on Brendon's hips, and Brendon leaned into him and kissed him, hard, his dick pulsing as he started to come. 

Afterwards, when Brendon had collapsed down beside him, his breathing ragged, Spencer snuck out of the bed and into the bathroom, coming back out with a damp washcloth. 

"You can use mine in the morning," he said, rolling the condom off Brendon's dick messily, and trying to tie it in a knot. His hands were shaking, so he dumped it in the trash as it was, and leaned in to wipe Brendon's dick with the face cloth. Then he knelt a little closer, and pressed his tongue to Brendon's slit; Brendon whimpered, way too sensitive, and Spencer shifted so that he could meet Brendon's eyes. It was as close to _do you want me to stop_? as he could get.

"Don't stop," Brendon said, his hands catching in Spencer's hair. Spencer couldn't stop trembling, and he didn't know whether it was from the force of his orgasm, or the knowledge that this was it, this was the end. He took the head of Brendon's dick in his mouth, conscious of the way Brendon was quivering beneath him, oversensitive and needy, his hands pulling at Spencer's hair, drawing him even closer. 

Spencer went as easily as he could, taking in as much of Brendon as he could manage, and Brendon whimpered, his hands stroking at Spencer's shoulders and his back and his neck. It was just—it was too close, and not close enough, and everything in his head was a total fucking mess. 

He sat back, shifting on his heels so that he could pull the blankets up over them as he curled into Brendon's side, his mouth pressed to the corner of Brendon's mouth. 

"You taste like my dick," Brendon said, and Spencer laughed, sliding an arm around Brendon's waist. For a moment the tension was gone, and it was just the two of them, just like always, and then Brendon shifted so that he could wrap his arms around Spencer's shoulders and touch his mouth to Spencer's. He drew Spencer into a tight hug, and hid his face in Spencer's neck. "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," he said softly, and Spencer wanted to cry. He wanted to fucking break down, and hold on, and never let go - all three at the same time - and for everything to turn out the way he really fucking needed it to in his head. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and hugged Brendon even tighter, like it was just the two of them in the world and nobody else, like they had a future, and a relationship, and this wasn't their last night together. 

"Yeah," he managed after a minute, but his grip on Brendon didn't loosen, and neither did Brendon's grip on him. 

_Don't fall asleep,_ he told himself. _Just stay awake. Don't fall asleep, don't fall asleep, don't—_


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They wake up in the morning, and the vacation's over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to hermette for both the cheerleading and the beta. I promised that this would be the last chapter, but 6k in I realised I still had too much to write. The next one will be the last. 
> 
>  
> 
> Probably.

Spencer woke up to Brendon shaking his shoulder and pointing him towards the mug of coffee on the nightstand. 

"We have to pack," Brendon said, and Spencer nodded blearily, rubbing at his eyes with his fists and trying not to notice that Brendon was avoiding looking at him. 

Their vacation was over. For the briefest of moments, waking up, Spencer had forgotten that. 

"Thanks," he said, dropping his gaze. There was a strange sort of tension in the air, silent and still, and Spencer wanted to find something to say, but he couldn't. His breath was caught in his throat, thick and unyielding, and all he could do was push back the comforter and point awkwardly toward the bathroom. "You want to shower first?"

"No," Brendon said, fiddling with the comforter. "I'm already done. You go."

In the shower, Spencer leaned his forehead against the tiles. He told himself to breathe in and out, in and out, in and out. _It's over_ , he thought. _We're over_. 

He tipped his chin up into the spray, and tried not to think. 

—

They packed in silence, Spencer stuffing his belongings into the suitcase in handfuls. The only concession he made towards packing neatly was to put his souvenirs and gifts somewhere in the middle, where his clothes might make a cursory attempt at cushioning them from damage during the flight. He couldn't bring himself to care about the condition his belongings made it back to L.A. in; all he could really concentrate on was the way that he and Brendon weren't talking. It wasn't like either of them was ever particularly talkative first thing in the morning, especially when getting up early precipitated a trip to the airport, but there was an unfamiliar tension in the air they were both doing their best to ignore. 

"I'll go check the living room," Spencer said in the end, because his drawers were empty and his suitcase full, and the only other option was pushing Brendon up against the wall and refusing to leave. He wished he could do just that, that he could just turn back time and have the vacation over again. 

He went downstairs instead, shaking his head at the memory of pushing Brendon up against the wall and kissing him. _Stupid_ , he told himself, pushing open the door into the living room. He had to blink against the merry twinkle of the Christmas tree lights; Brendon had clearly already been in here—Spencer's camera was on the coffee table in the center of the room, their belongings piled up next to it, ready to take upstairs. 

Spencer wondered how long Brendon had been awake that morning before he'd woken Spencer with coffee. He swallowed, picking up his camera so that he could take more pictures of the Christmas tree, of the remains of the fire in the grate, of the heart-shaped blanket on the back of the couch. Cataloguing it all made it feel like it hadn't been a dream. Already their time here was beginning to fade at the edges, curling in on itself like it hadn't ever happened. 

He turned off his camera and fumbled behind the tree to switch off the Christmas lights. He stared at the tree for a moment before leaning over to scoop up the pile of their belongings that Brendon had left on the coffee table. His hands were full of iPods and camera cables and magazines and a notebook they'd used to play sexy hangman in earlier in the week. It was still open at the page where they'd left off, Brendon's doodle of a stickman getting a blowjob still half finished. Spencer swallowed and headed out and into the hallway, kicking the door shut behind him as he went. 

He dumped all of their stuff in his case when he got back upstairs, not bothering to check which of their things were his and which were Brendon's. _It didn't matter_ , he thought. He'd just untangle them when they were back in L.A..

"You want more coffee?" Brendon asked as Spencer finished dumping their stuff into his case. "I think I'm done up here. I grabbed the rest of the stuff out the bathroom."

"Sure," Spencer said, watching as Brendon zipped up his case. "More coffee would be good."

"Awesome," Brendon said. He grabbed his backpack and shouldered it, heading for the stairs with his stuff. "Will you check up we've got everything up here? We should get going after the coffee."

Spencer swallowed, and looked down at their bed. "Yeah," he said and waited until Brendon had finished bumping his case down the stairs before sinking down onto the edge of the mattress and letting out a shaky breath. "Fuck," he said. "Fuck."

He kicked at his case. They had a long day driving ahead of them, and then a flight half way across the world, and then at the end of it he had to figure out how to make things okay between them. He wasn't sure if he could. 

Sighing, he took one last look in the bathroom, grabbing one of Brendon's shirts from where it had fallen down the back of the radiator. He dropped it into his case as he went back into the bedroom to pull the blankets off the bed and check they hadn't left anything else. He resolutely shoved Brendon's shirt under everything else in his suitcase, and then zipped it shut, and gathered up the rest of his stuff to take downstairs. 

There was coffee waiting in the coffee press on the kitchen counter, so Spencer dumped his stuff in the hallway and took his empty cup into the kitchen. Brendon was leaning with his back against the sink, picking at the remains of what was in the fridge—some cold cuts, an apple and some cream cheese. 

"You want some?" he asked, holding up a chunk of apple dipped in cream cheese. 

Spencer made a face. "Really?" 

"We're going to have to stop to pick up breakfast because I'm starving," Brendon said. "But this isn't so bad. It's kind of nice. In its own way."

"Okay," Spencer said, and Brendon cut him a slice of apple and held it out for him to take. Spencer took it, and dipped it in the cheese. He took a bite, and wiped his mouth. "This is—this is better than I thought."

"Try it wrapped in a cold cut," Brendon suggested, holding out a slice of ham. 

Spencer made a face, but he wrapped the slice of apple in the cold cut and took a bite. "Huh," he said. 

"Right?" Brendon said, and licked his lips. "It's kind of okay."

Spencer's gaze flicked to Brendon's mouth. "We're still on vacation," he said after a moment. His mouth felt dry. 

Brendon swallowed. "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," he said, sounding kind of shaky. He was staring at Spencer's mouth, and Spencer could feel his heart beating loud in his chest as he stared right on back. 

He just—he wanted this so much. More than _anything_. Definitely more than he wanted to catch the stupid fucking plane.

"Fuck," Spencer said, unable to help himself, and he leaned in to press his mouth to Brendon's. 

"Fuck," Brendon echoed, and he dropped the carton of cream cheese down onto the counter, and pushed Spencer back against the fridge. Spencer couldn't help but kiss him again, hands in Brendon's hair, thumb pressed to Brendon's cheek as he kissed him over and over. 

Brendon slid his hands under Spencer's shirt, pressing his hips to Spencer's. Spencer could feel how hard Brendon was already, and he tried to gasp back a breath as Brendon rolled his hips up against Spencer's erection. 

Spencer couldn't breathe. He'd been so sure that this had been over, that they'd already had the end, and now Brendon was hard, and he was hard, and they had a plane to catch but Spencer couldn't bring himself to care if he missed it. He just wanted this, wanted Brendon, wanted every last second they could catch together while they were still on vacation. 

"Have we got time?" Brendon asked, rocking his hips so that his dick was pressed hard against Spencer's. He tilted his hips up so that his erection dragged over Spencer's, and Spencer groaned, hard. 

"Don't care if we don't," Spencer managed breathlessly, and Brendon kissed him, urgent and desperate, one hand sliding down to fumble at the button of his jeans. 

"Me neither," Brendon said, and he tugged at Spencer's fly, dropping down onto his knees to pull at Spencer's underwear and take Spencer's dick in his mouth. 

Spencer tipped his head back and it hit the fridge with a thunk; he tangled his fingers into Brendon's hair and tried to concentrate on breathing. Brendon's mouth was so hot and already everything was messy and slick and wet. He still couldn't get over how hot it was to look down and see Brendon down there, and see the outline of the head of his dick pressed up against the inside of Brendon's cheek. He touched his fingers to Brendon's face, rubbing his thumb over Brendon's cheek, and Brendon whined a little around Spencer's dick. It only made things feel about a hundred times better. 

He fucking loved being sucked off, and he loved it best when it was it was Brendon on his knees with his mouth around Spencer's dick. He tried not to think _last time, last time_ , but he couldn't help it. He touched at Brendon's shoulder, urging him up so that he could kiss him, tasting himself on Brendon's kiss. Brendon fisted his hands in Spencer's shirt and kissed him over and over, desperate and furious, and Spencer knew that he was going to ache after this, the fridge pressed up against his back and Brendon's hands grabbing him everywhere. 

Spencer only wanted more. 

"My turn," he said, pushing Brendon back against the counter so that he could drop to his knees and unzip Brendon's fly. He wanted to mouth at Brendon's dick through the cotton of his underwear, make it last, but they didn't have time. The seconds were ticking away, and there was just this _,_ and them, and Spencer wanted it all. He pulled Brendon's underwear down and over his dick, and then it was easy to close his fist around the base of Brendon's dick and take the head in his mouth. 

He licked over the slit, fisting the base of Brendon's dick. He loved the way Brendon felt against his tongue, the way he tasted, the weight of his dick in Spencer's mouth. He just—he was in love with Brendon, and in love with having sex with Brendon, and there just hadn't been enough time to figure out everything that there was to know about him. About them. He didn't want to suck anyone off but Brendon. Not ever. He was done.

"Get up here," Brendon said in a hoarse voice, after a minute. Spencer's legs felt shaky and a little bit like jello, but he let Brendon tug him up and into a kiss. Brendon was holding him up, hands underneath Spencer's shirt, and Spencer couldn't help but kiss him again, even more desperate than before. 

"Let me jerk you off," Brendon gasped, sliding his hand down to Spencer's dick. "You can do me back."

"Yeah," Spencer managed, sliding his hand down between them and circling his hand around Brendon's dick. He squeezed, just enough to make Brendon groan. He jacked him off awkwardly, concentrating too much on kissing him, and the knowledge that they only had a few minutes left. 

Brendon kissed him again, over and over, and Spencer could feel his orgasm building in his belly, desperate and hard. He jerked Brendon roughly, Brendon's mouth dragging over his. Spencer really loved it when things got kind of messy. He'd never really liked that before. 

He caught Brendon's bottom lip in his teeth, and Brendon whined, one hand in Spencer's hair. Spencer was going to come. He was going to come, from this, rushed and desperate and totally fucking last-minute. He kissed him again.

"Going to come," Brendon said breathlessly, shifting so that he could bite at Spencer's lip, his eyes dark, and Spencer could only think _yes, yes_. He couldn't talk. He kissed Brendon again, jerking him even as Brendon gave a startled cry and started to come, hot and wet and desperate in Spencer's hand. 

For a long moment he was boneless in Spencer's arms, and then he shifted, catching Spencer's mouth in a kiss. His grip tightened on Spencer's dick, and then Spencer pulled away to hide his face in Brendon's neck as Brendon jerked him off. His mouth was so fucking dry. Brendon dragged his fingertips through Spencer's hair, stroking at his scalp, and Spencer couldn't help it. Brendon was jerking him off with his own come, and Spencer just—he couldn't. He rocked his hips up, breathless and desperate, and then he started to come with a bitten-off groan. 

Afterwards, sticky and hot, Spencer pulled away uneasily, chewing on his lip. 

"That was—" he started. He didn't know how to say what he was thinking. 

"Awesome," Brendon finished, laughing kind of awkwardly. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and laughed again, nervous and unsure. "Best end to a vacation ever." He fumbled with his underwear, and then the zipper of his pants. 

Spencer followed him, doing up his jeans. He felt uncomfortable and awkward; Brendon turned him on so much, and coming had been so easy and so quick, but now they were back to where they'd been before. Except worse, because now Spencer had no idea what the fuck was going on with them. 

"Yeah," he said. "Best ending."

Brendon swallowed and looked away, and Spencer reached for the car keys. They were ready to leave.

—

The drive back across Wales was long and quiet and tense and awkward. 

They stopped at a gas station with a store attached after an hour; Spencer filled the tank while Brendon went inside to see if there was anything they could have for breakfast. 

He came back five minutes later with two coffees in Styrofoam cups and two paper bags. 

"Cheese and onion pasties," he said, passing one of the coffees and one of the paper bags to Spencer over the gear stick. Spencer was doing the first few hours of driving, and Brendon the last. Spencer really, really hadn't wanted to be alone with the inside of his head and nothing to do with his hands when they'd first left the cottage.

"What even is that?" Spencer asked, peering inside the bag. "Is it supposed to be a pastry? But cheese flavored?"

"No idea," Brendon said. "I asked her what was the best thing she had for breakfast, and after she apologized for not having a toaster so she could make me toast, she said these were great." He shot Spencer an awkward half-smile, and Spencer flushed a little pink. "And I think it's a pasty, not a pastry."

"Oh," Spencer said, taking his pasty out. It was really hot—too hot to touch, so he dropped it back into the bag so he could hold it through the paper—and when he poked at it with his finger, the pastry turned out to be kind of flaky, a little like a croissant, but ridged at the edges. "It looks a bit like a hot pocket."

"Yeah," Brendon said. He took a bite, chewing with his mouth open, wiping away the crumbs with the back of his hand. "Fuck, that's good. Try it. Million times better than a hot pocket."

Spencer took a cautious bite, and had to agree. "These are really good," he said, because apparently cheese and onion pastries— _pasties_ —were something that were missing from his life. 

Brendon nodded, and turned the radio back on. It was easier to sit in silence when they had the music on loud. 

Spencer concentrated on finishing his pasty, and feeling considerably less hungry than he had when they'd pulled in, he turned the key in the ignition, feeling the engine stumble into life. 

They pulled out of the gas station, and onto yet another winding road. He never thought he'd miss the grid system, but eventually, the Welsh roads turned into something resembling a highway—or at least a straight-ish road—and they pulled off the road at a comfort stop to switch seats. 

Spencer fumbled awkwardly with his phone. "Can't wait to get my phone signal back," he said, thumbing through the list of messages, all over a week old. 

Brendon did a full body stretch, hands above his head, and Spencer was pretty sure he could see a slither of skin from where his jeans met his hoodie. He tried not to stare. 

"It's freezing," he said, turning around so that he couldn't see anymore. "You want me to run in and get us both coffees?"

"Sure," Brendon said. "I should probably go to the bathroom, too."

It was really amazing how they could go from saying everything, and touching everywhere, to behaving like strangers who barely knew each other. 

Spencer's heart ached. 

—

They were half an hour early to check in at the airport, so they bought chocolate bars and bottles of coke to while away the time before their desks opened. Handing back the car had been easy enough—they'd had to pay extra because they hadn't had the time to even give it a cursory clean out, and Spencer felt vaguely ashamed of the piles of junk food cartons and mud and sand they'd managed to get all over it since the start of their vacation—but they'd handed the keys over and dragged their stuff over to the departures entrance.

They piled their cases up by the windows at the entrance to the airport, and Spencer leaned his well-padded metalwork dragon up against his case as he sat down on the little ledge to have his Snickers and his bottle of Coke while they watched the screen with all the check-in desks listed. 

Brendon looked the other way, awkward and unsure, and Spencer didn't want to believe that it had come to this. He was, he told himself, going to actually sit down and talk to Brendon when they got back home. He was going to ask if this was something that Brendon maybe wanted to continue now that the vacation was over. If they had a future, or even just a _now_. He'd take a now. He'd take anything, he knew, because he was in love, and stupid, and seriously in danger of fucking up the one thing in his life he knew he couldn't be without. 

Fuck, he was so tired. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. Brendon wasn't even looking at him. Brendon was nervous and awkward, tapping his foot and looking at anything that wasn't Spencer. 

Spencer sighed, and stared down at his hands until their desk opened and they could gather their things together and go join the line to check their bags. 

—

The flight was long and interminable, and Spencer spent most of it with his earbuds in, watching movies he wasn't interested in on the in-flight entertainment system. Brendon spent most of it asleep, curled up inside his hoodie, still with his glasses on. Spencer wanted to lean over and takes his glasses off for him, but—he couldn't. There were a million invisible lines that he'd never even noticed were there before, and now he couldn't cross any of them. 

He was so tired, and everything hurt, and the flight seemed longer than every other flight he'd ever taken. By the time the plane started to descend, Spencer was about five seconds away from cracking up. He felt like he hadn't slept in a month, and constantly being aware that Brendon was next to him didn't make it any easier for him to relax. 

"Hey," he said, as the plane touched down. Brendon was still asleep, mouth open, drooling a little. He poked at Brendon's elbow with his fingertip. "Hey, wake up."

"Go away," Brendon mumbled, trying to push him away. 

"You've got to wake up," Spencer said. "We've landed."

For a moment, just a moment, Brendon opened his eyes and everything was just the same as it always had been. He grinned at Spencer sleepily, and blinked awake. 

Spencer could tell the moment Brendon remembered where they were, and what they'd done, and how they were right now. 

He swallowed, and gathered all his crap together from the flight, magazines and earbuds and brownie wrappers. They were home, and their vacation was over, and all they had to do now was figure out where to go from here. 

—

Spencer woke up slowly, reality hitting him inch by inch. He fumbled blindly for his phone, blinking blearily at the screen. _2pm_. He couldn't remember what time it had been when they'd got in from the airport. It had still been light, but any more than that and he was stumped. Those last couple of hours had felt like he'd been walking in a fog. He'd been dead on his feet. 

He didn't feel much better now. He had no fucking idea what time his body thought it was.

Maybe if he could just get back in the swing of things, this thing with Brendon wouldn't seem so life-changing and so important. 

He was kidding himself, he knew that. He wasn't stupid. He knew that he just needed to stand the fuck up and go ask Brendon if there was any chance at all for the two of them, because not knowing was killing him. He couldn't even think. He either needed to be in love, or be heartbroken, because the mixture of the two was driving him insane. 

"Get up," he told himself, and for good measure he crawled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom, splashing himself with cold water to wake himself up. In the mirror he looked bleary-eyed and half-dead. _Such a fucking catch_ , he told himself. He could hear noise from downstairs; Brendon was up. 

"Be brave," he said softly, into the mirror, and then he turned around and went downstairs, still wearing his boxer shorts and a t-shirt. If he stopped to get dressed he'd lose his courage entirely.

"Brendon," he said, coming down the stairs. "Have you—" he stopped, because Brendon was standing by the front door, stuffing Christmas gifts into a huge blue bag, the kind that came from Ikea and that they always ended up with a ton of whenever either of them went shopping there. "Oh," he said. Spencer's suitcase and still-packed metalwork dragon were exactly where he'd left it, in the middle of the floor in the hallway, but Brendon's case was gone. Well, not gone, but now standing up against the front door, next to a grocery sack of dog food, a shit-ton of electronics and the half-filled bag of Christmas gifts. 

"I didn't want Bogart to be alone on Christmas," Brendon said awkwardly, flushing red. He clambered to his feet, a trail of Christmas gifts around his feet.

"He's going to be with Shane," Spencer said, still unsure of what he was seeing. He and Brendon were flying back to Vegas together, tomorrow, and Shane was going to look after Bogart while Brendon and Spencer spent Christmas with their families. They'd had this planned for _months_. "He's not going to be alone."

"I didn't want him to not be with me, then," Brendon prevaricated. "He'll think I've forgotten him."

"He doesn't think that when we go on tour, dude," Spencer said. "He fucking loves staying with Shane."

"I want my dog," Brendon said stubbornly. "So I'm going to drive to Vegas, is the point. With Bogart. I'm going to go pick him up now."

"You have a plane ticket," Spencer said, because he did. They did. Together. The fact that Brendon had planned on leaving without Spencer was slowly starting to sink in, and Spencer didn't like the way that felt. 

"I'll call them," Brendon said. "See if I can switch the dates or something. Or get a refund, I don't care."

Spencer gripped the bannister. "Okay," he said. His head felt kind of muffled. It wasn't a good feeling. He didn't know what to say. He figured that _do you want to date me, for real?_ wasn't really as good an idea as he wished it was. Or maybe the answer was way too obvious. Either way, he and Brendon were through, and it looked like Spencer was going home for the holidays alone. He turned around, because watching Brendon leave was too hard. "I guess I'll see you after the holidays, then."

"Spence—" Brendon said, when Spencer was half up the stairs. 

"What?" He turned around, because he couldn't _not_. There was still time for things to change, for things not to end like this. Hope curled in his belly. 

Brendon watched him for a long moment, eyes unreadable. "Happy holidays, man," he said finally. 

"Yeah," Spencer said, and went back upstairs to bed. 

—

"Spencer," his mom said, hitting him on the shoulder with the dish towel. "Is everything okay?"

Spencer checked his phone for the twentieth time. "Yeah," he lied. He tried to get comfortable on the couch. "Just tired."

"Hmm," his mom said. She didn't believe him, Spencer could tell, but he couldn't dredge up the energy to pretend he was okay. He'd been home twenty-four hours, and so far he'd spent the whole time either in bed or on the couch. He'd taken ownership of the remote control, much to his sisters' annoyance, but since this was his worst Christmas ever, they'd just have to deal with him not letting them pick holiday-themed movie after holiday-themed movie. So far he'd made them watch _Reservoir Dogs_ and _Spice World_ , both of which had contributed pretty effectively in making this the worst Christmas in the world. 

"He's lying," Jackie said, from the armchair. 

"I know," his mom said. "Come help me in the kitchen, Spencer."

"Mom," he complained. "I'm watching this."

"And it isn't my job to wash and clean up after you, and it's Christmas Eve, so come load the dishwasher."

"Mom," he said again. "I'm jetlagged."

"Don't care," she said. "Loading the dishwasher isn't going to wear you out."

Spencer grumbled, but he got up anyway, following his mom into the kitchen. She waited until he'd loaded three plates into the dishwasher before speaking, but Spencer knew it was coming. 

"How was your vacation, Spencer?" she asked. 

"It was—it was good," he said. He forced himself to concentrate on the dirty plates, and their cereal bowls from breakfast, and not on the memory of being in bed with Brendon, and getting to touch every inch of him, or waking up every morning and secretly, deep down inside, hoping that there might be a future. 

"And it was just you and Brendon?" 

"Yeah." She was fishing, he knew that, but he legitimately had nothing to give her. He could give her the truth—that he'd fallen in love with someone who didn't want him back anymore—or he could say nothing. 

"And you—you didn't fight, or anything?"

"No," he said. "Not really."

"Oh." She passed him a plate, and a mug. "Are the two of you—is the band okay?"

"I think so," he said. "It was. Before the vacation. We haven't really done anything since." He itched to check his phone again, to see if Brendon had messaged him. There hadn't been anything not in two days, nothing but a _drive was a killer. Got here safe_ message in the middle of the night. He'd replied, but Brendon hadn't said anything back. 

"Is it a girl, Spence?"

Spencer wanted to laugh. "No," he said. "It's not a girl."

"Give me a clue, will you? I'm clutching at straws."

"Mom," Jackie said, from the doorway. "Leave him alone."

"See, Jackie's on my side," Spencer said, which was kind of weird, considering. It wasn't that he and Jackie didn't get along, apart from how they hadn't really had that much to say to each other in recent months. 

"I need to go to the store," Jackie said. "Come with me, Spence. I need one of those big-ass boxes of Coke Zero. There's no way I'm getting through Christmas Day without it, and fricking Crys has drunk my last can. Come help me carry it."

It was kind of weird, Spencer knew, and out of the blue, but he went anyway, shrugging awkwardly at his mom as he left. His mom rolled her eyes and shook her head, leaning over the dishwasher to finish loading it herself. Spencer only felt half-bad, because there was one thing he didn't want to talk about, and that was Brendon. He knew his mom, she'd needle him over and over until he gave in and told her the truth, and Spencer didn't want her to know he'd been stupid, and an idiot, and he'd gotten in way too deep and screwed everything up.

He let out a breath and followed Jackie outside and into the car, checking his pockets for his phone as he went. He'd grabbed his wallet from the side table by the door, because he figured that if he couldn't have Brendon, he could at least get drunk on Christmas Day and fuck the consequences. 

As life plans went, buying a shit ton of beer so he could drown out Christmas possibly wasn't his best. 

Jackie put the car into reverse and backed out into the street, narrowly missing the mailbox. She only did it to annoy Spencer, since Jackie was the best driver out of the three of them, but every time he was in the car with her she pretended to hit it just to annoy him. 

Spencer rolled his eyes. It was the kind of thing that Brendon did, just to get a rise out of him. He looked out of the window, at the passing houses. Some things never changed, no matter how far away from home he went. 

She waited until she got to the stop sign at the end of the street before reaching down to grab her purse. She lifted it onto his knee, and tugged at the zip. "Open it," she instructed, looking at the road again. 

Puzzled, he unzipped her bag, and sitting on top of her wallet and her random assortment of stuff she carried around with her every day was Spencer's camera. "What—" He looked up, feeling stupid. "What are you doing with this?"

"I was going to take a picture of Crystal asleep so I stole your camera from your room," she said, leaning over the wheel to get a better view past the parked cars. She turned the corner, sliding easily into the traffic. "I pressed the wrong button, and got your pictures instead. I figured—I don't know. I thought you might want to get out of the house for a while."

Spencer swallowed. He turned the camera on; it beeped into life with an electronic _beep-beep._ He pressed the pictures button, and it loaded the last picture he'd taken. He clicked back a couple of shots, until he found one that took his breath away. It was him and Brendon, wearing their stupid purple coats, kissing each other and holding the camera up, myspace style. 

"Oh," he said softly. His chest hurt. He put the camera down in his lap again, but he couldn't stop looking at the picture on the screen. 

"I didn't mean to look," Jackie said. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Spencer said. _It was_ , he thought. Jackie knowing wasn't going to make the knot in his chest get any more painful. 

"I didn't know—you and Brendon—"

"We weren't. It was just this vacation." Jackie pulled the car into the parking lot by their old elementary school. He remembered climbing on the jungle gym and hurting his wrist falling off it. "It was just—it happened. We happened. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. That kind of a thing. It was just a thing. A vacation thing."

Jackie killed the engine, and just for a moment there was quiet. "Were you—are you in love with him?"

Spencer stroked his thumb over the screen. "Yes," he said finally. It felt like there was something hard and painful splintering in his chest. His eyes watered. "Oh fuck, Jackie. I'm so fucking in love with him." He couldn't breathe. "I've fucked everything up. I've screwed up everything."

"You haven't," she said, leaning over and covering Spencer's wrist with her own. "I bet you haven't."

"I have." He really, really couldn't breathe. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. He was still so tired, and he wasn't sleeping properly, and he wanted to kiss Brendon again so much it hurt. He was such a fucking cliché. 

"Come sit on the jungle gym with me," Jackie said after a minute. "Come on." She grabbed Spencer's camera and pushed open the door. "Everything's better with fresh air."

"You sound like Mom," he grumbled, but he followed her outside anyway, and through the gap in the fence and into the playground. He climbed up onto the jungle gym and sat on the top, feet dangling. He rubbed at his eyes and sniffed. "You know what would make this better? Being high. Being fucking high."

Jackie rolled her eyes. "Not a good coping mechanism, Spence."

"S'not a coping mechanism," he lied. He laid back on the bars, staring up at the sky. It had been years since he'd hung out here. The last time had been with Ryan, back before the band had made it big. It was still fucking uncomfortable. The bars dug into his back.

"Can I look at the rest of the pictures?" Jackie asked. 

Spencer swallowed, and shrugged. "If you want," he said. "It was just a stupid vacation thing. Not important. I just screwed shit up."

He heard the familiar _beep-beep_ , and he covered his eyes with his arm as Jackie began to scroll through the pictures. It was pretty chilly outside, but he'd rather stay out here, like this, than go back home. Deal with the fact that Brendon had made it pretty clear he didn't want to do any of it anymore. Didn't want him. 

"Oh, Spence," she said after a while. "Did you tell him how you felt?"

"No," he said. "I tried, but he was leaving to come here. He canceled his flight reservation with me and drove by himself instead. Pretty much couldn't get away quick enough."

"Yeah, well," she said. "Brendon always was good at running away and pretending like shit wasn't going down."

"Jackie."

"It's true," she persisted. "Brendon's always pretending everything's okay and checking out. I love him, but it's true."

"Jackie—"

"Look at this picture." She shoved the camera in front of his face. Brendon was laughing at the camera, eyes crinkled. He looked so easy, and so comfortable, and so happy. "If he fucking disappeared on you, it's because he feels something for you, too."

"Don't say that," he managed. "Please, Jack. Don't make me think I've got a chance."

"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," she said softly. 

"What?"

"You're in Vegas, Spence," she said. 

Spencer swallowed. "What difference does that make?"

"What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," she repeated. "Text him and tell him you're in Vegas."

"He knows that."

"I know," she said. "But tell him anyway." Something about her bright-eyed enthusiasm grabbed him, and he fumbled in his pocket for his phone. 

"What am I doing?" he asked, unlocking his phone. 

"You're too slow," she said, grabbing his phone. "Here, let me." She jumped down off the jungle gym, Spencer's camera slung over her neck. By the time Spencer managed to get down, she was already pressing send. 

" _Jackie_ ," he managed. "Fuck, what did you say?"

" _I'm in Vegas_ ," she said, holding Spencer's phone out behind her. 

Spencer rolled his eyes, and made a grab for the phone. "What the fuck? I really need to be high if you're going to screw around with my life." His heart pounded.

"Trust me," she said, and sure enough, Spencer's phone buzzed with a message. Jackie handed it over, the lock screen showing. "Put your pin in."

Spencer fumbled his pin in, and scrolled to the message. Brendon's message just said, _yeah?_

"Type _and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas_." 

Spencer got half way through before he realized what he was typing. "What the fuck?"

"Type," Jackie instructed. "Trust me."

"Your last boyfriend dumped you on Valentine's Day," Spencer grumbled. 

"And you're the worst big brother in the world. Hang on, don't type that. Type, _and what happens in Vegas dot dot dot_."

"Do I need to type out _dot dot dot_?" 

"Shut up." 

"Seriously, what the fuck am I doing?" Spencer pressed send without re-reading what he'd typed. His heart was beating like a kick-drum in his chest. 

His phone beeped. Brendon's text said _...stays in Vegas?_

"Tell him _no_ ," Jackie told him. "Tell him no."

"Jackie—" 

"Tell him," she said. 

He typed _no_ and pressed send. "Fuck."

_No?_

_It doesn't stay in vegas_ , he typed, without looking at Jackie. _Not for me_. 

Spencer's phone didn't beep after that. They waited by the jungle gym, just in case, but Spencer's phone stayed silent. 

After a while, Jackie shook her head. "I was so sure," she said softly. "I'm so sorry, Spence."

"Not your fault," Spencer said dully. He kept looking at his phone. "Nobody's fault. Just mine."

"Let's go to the store and get the Coke," Jackie said. She squeezed Spencer's arm, but Spencer just felt kind of numb all over, and kind of sick. "Then we can go home and watch movies where everyone dies." She waited a moment. "I'm really sorry."

Spencer swallowed down a choked breath. "It's okay," he said. It wasn't, but there wasn't anything else to say. He thumbed open his message window again, and opened a new message. _I'm in love with you_ , he typed. It didn't matter anymore, it was out in the open. There was no point keeping it a secret. _I wont let it get in the way of the band. Sorry._

He pressed send, and then he locked his phone, stuffed it in the pocket of his jacket, and followed Jackie back to the car. 

His phone beeped just as Jackie started the engine, and Spencer stared down at his phone for a moment, before Jackie killed the engine again and poked him in the arm. "Oh my god, what's he say?"

Spencer swallowed, and unlocked his phone. Brendon's message said, _Meet me somewhere?_

_Where_ , Spencer typed. He thought about the pub he and Brendon had met Gareth and his friends in, and the way that Gareth had emailed him a couple of times and he'd ignored them both. Right now he'd give anything to be able to be back there, with Brendon. 

_We're riding the holiday train at boulder city_. _Where are u_

_On the jungle gym with Jackie. Going to buy coke at the store._

_Jungle gym? Which store? Wait for me in the parking lot. 30 mins max._

Spencer glanced at Jackie, who was unashamedly leaning over his shoulder and reading his texts. 

"Tell him, idiot," she said. 

Spencer typed in the name of the store, and let out a breath. "What if he's going to tell me he never wants to see me again?"

Jackie rolled her eyes. "I love Brendon, but he's kind of a giant scaredy cat. He'll run in the opposite direction and pretend nothing's happening. He's not going to meet you some place so he can yell at you."

Spencer hummed. "Okay," he said, dropping his phone in his lap. Brendon hadn't replied to his text about the store. He wondered what Brendon was doing right now, if he was driving, what he was thinking. He could feel something like hope blooming in his chest, and he didn't want to hope. He'd been hopeful before, and then Brendon had canceled his flight reservation and driven to Las Vegas instead. He knew Brendon better than anyone else in the world, but even that didn't mean that he knew which Brendon was going to show up in the parking lot - his best friend, or the guy he'd accidentally married for a week. Or someone else entirely. 

"So," Jackie said, the engine purring into life. "Is he good in bed?"

" _Jackie_ ," Spencer managed, mortified. His cheeks burned. 

"This is awesome," Jackie went on. "Now you can talk to me and Crys about _boys_. Or Crystal can tell you about that girl she totally kissed on spring break. We can all compare stories, it'll be awesome."

"I hate you," Spencer said, hiding his face in his hands. All he could think about was how it had felt to pull Brendon into his arms, them both naked, Brendon laughing him and kissing him over and over. His heart pounded. 

Jackie elbowed him. "Go on, tell me. Is he good? He's totally enthusiastic, right?"

"Oh god," Spencer said. He rolled his eyes. "Okay, he's great, okay? He's really fucking good. And that's all you're going to get from me, so stop making that face."

Jackie bit her lip. "I had such a crush on him. Don't ever tell anyone. I had his picture stuffed into my notebook the first day of high school."

Spencer snorted. "You didn't."

"I did," she said. "Crystal found out and wouldn't shut up about it for months."

"That is amazing," Spencer said. "He's going to love that."

"Don't you dare tell him," Jackie said. "Anyway, I'm not the person in the car with the ridiculous hard on for him, anyway."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that," Spencer told her, shaking his head. "You don't know words like that."

Jackie made a face. "I'm not sixteen any more, Spence."

"I know." He knew. He stretched out, rolling his shoulders. His muscles were tense. _He_ was tense. He cracked his knuckles and stared out the window. He knew he hadn't been reading too much into it when he and Brendon had been on vacation and Brendon had been really into him. It was just that—he didn't know for certain that this was something that extended beyond their vacation, or even if it was a good idea if it _did_. Jackie was right when she said that Brendon's standard response to anything was to cut and run; that was what he did. He pretended shit wasn't going down. He did things like cancel a flight so he could drive to Vegas with his dog. He pretended that he and Spencer hadn't just spent a week in Wales learning how they fit together. 

Spencer chewed on a hangnail, and watched the road roll by.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Brendon and Spencer talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta and cheerleading by the wonderful hermette. <3

Brendon was waiting for them in the parking lot when they got to the grocery store. Spencer put the fact that he'd gotten there first down to the fact that Jackie had run out of gas and the line at the gas station had been about a million people long, and because Brendon could drive like a maniac if you caught him on a good day. 

"He's over there," Jackie said, pointing over to the corner, where Brendon had parked his Audi across two spaces. "Jeez, did he ever learn how to park?"

"I can see him," Spencer said, because his palms were sweating and his heart was beating a rough but steady pulse loud in his ears. "And the cars around him have parked badly, look. It's not his fault."

Jackie shot him a look. "You have got it bad."

"Shut up," Spencer said, as Jackie crawled into the lot after a car that was clearly looking for a space as close to the entrance to the store as possible. "Fuck, what the fuck am I doing?"

"Don't panic," she said. "Seriously. He's here. That's a great sign. If he didn't want to deal with this he'd have run for the hills by now."

"I don't know why you're so down on him," Spencer said, biting his lip. Brendon was leaning up against the trunk of his car, arms wrapped around himself against the unseasonably cold weather. Spencer didn't think he'd spotted them yet; it wasn't like he knew to look out for Jackie's car. 

"I'm not," Jackie told him. "I love him, he's great. But he runs away if he thinks he's going to lose something he loves. It's what he does."

Spencer sighed. "When did you get so perceptive?"

"I'm a psych major," she said. When he raised an eyebrow, she rolled her eyes. "Okay, I'm not. I'm just perceptive. Plus he's not exactly subtle." She pulled the car to a halt behind Brendon's. "The parking lot's full, Spence, and I still need to buy Coke. Tell Brendon to let me have his space."

"Bossy," Spencer said. He took a deep breath, and then another one. _Okay_. 

"Go on," Jackie said. "I'm having Coke Zero withdrawal, get out."

Spencer climbed out of the car and shut the door behind him. Brendon straightened up, eyes bright. Neither of them moved. 

"Hi," Spencer said finally. 

"Hi," Brendon echoed. 

Behind them, Jackie beeped her horn. 

"Oh," Spencer said, jumping. "Jackie says can she have your parking space? She needs Coke."

"Right, sure," Brendon says quickly. "Okay. Spence?"

"I'm coming with you," Spencer says, and he pulled open the passenger door and slid inside, letting out a breath. Brendon looked just the same as he had a couple of days ago. Nothing had changed, and Spencer knew that, but he couldn't shake himself away from the way he'd felt in Wales. In Wales it had been okay just to lean in and kiss him, or slide his hand onto the nape of Brendon's neck and let him come to Spencer. Right now, being back in Vegas, he felt kind of adrift, like what had happened in Wales was pulling him one way, and everything else that had come before was pulling him back. There was so much to remember about being back here: being ten years old and eating ice creams with Ryan in the parking lot while Spencer's mom shopped inside; being sixteen and buying snacks to take to his Grandma's garage so that the band could practice; going to Taco Bell with Pete Wentz after he'd come to listen to them; seeing Brendon's apartment for the first time and being torn between being jealous of Brendon not having his parents breathing over his shoulder all the time, and worried that Brendon was all alone. Breaking up with Haley, with Ryan and Jon, fighting with his mom and dad, and being Jackie and Crystal's big brother. His whole life was rooted here, in its own way, and yet this was the first time he wished it wasn't. In Wales, all of that had kind of slipped away, until it was just the two of them. 

Next to him, Brendon started the engine and reversed untidily out into the parking lot, just as haphazard as usual. "Where are we going to go?" Brendon asked, throwing Jackie an awkward wave as he drove past. Jackie made a face at Spencer but waved back. 

The air in the car was tense and hot; Brendon clearly had had the heat up high. "I don't know," he said, because he didn't have a clue. They couldn't go back to his place, and for the same reason, they probably couldn't go back to Brendon's, either. If they were going to talk about this then they needed somewhere private. But it was the day before Christmas, and everywhere was going to be busy. He pointed out the window at the McDonalds drive thru on the corner. "There?" Spencer was hungry, maybe they could get burgers and sit out in the lot. 

"The Travelodge?" Brendon asked, already pulling over. "Okay."

"Wha- oh," Spencer said. He hadn't thought about the Travelodge Motel behind the McDonalds. It made sense; at least they weren't going to be disturbed. It wasn't like they hadn't taken motels in the middle of the day before, either. Sometimes tour exhaustion hit so bad that they'd just hole up in a motel for an afternoon, passed out on the bed or watching endless bad TV. Sometimes they'd needed a shower and a place to sleep for a few hours before a show, and it wasn't like the tour budget ran to that all that often, but occasionally, it had. "Okay."

Spencer went to the McDonalds while Brendon booked them a room. He'd needed something to do, so going to buy food seemed like a good idea at the time. He'd jogged across the parking lot, coming back five minutes later with a handful of burgers and a couple of orders of fries. 

Brendon was waiting for him on the hood of his car, the room key in his hand. He put on the woolly hat that they'd bought in Wales, and just for a second, Spencer was breathless with what they'd had, and what he wanted. 

Brendon hopped off the hood. "It's number 9," he said. "Come on, it's freezing out here."

"Should have stayed in the car," Spencer pointed out, but he followed Brendon out of the parking lotand up to the door of their room. He was pretty sure he could hear someone either a) having sex or b) watching some enthusiastic porn in the next room, but he always tried not to think about what other people got up to in motels. Instead, he followed Brendon inside, dumping the food on the table by the door and bending down to fiddle with the heater on the wall. "That's better," he said, vaguely aware that he sounded just like his mom. He stood up, unbuttoning his coat and dropping his gloves down onto the bed. At least switching a heater on was easier than laying a fire, so he supposed the motel had something over the cottage in Wales. 

When he turned around, Brendon was standing right behind him, and he hadn't so much as pulled off his hat. 

Spencer let out a breath. "What?" he said, even though he knew what. He'd sent a text message telling Brendon that he was in love with him, and it didn't matter how much they skirted around the issue or took motel rooms or bought McDonalds so that they didn't have to talk about it, it had still happened. No amount of pretending it hadn't would change it. 

"I don't think I was pretending in Wales," Brendon said. "When we were together, I wasn't pretending."

"I know," Spencer said, since he hadn't been pretending either. Not pretending wasn't the same as being in love with someone, though. Not pretending didn't mean the same as reciprocating Spencer's feelings. Not pretending didn't mean that this was going to be okay. "I wasn't either." There was a strange, tight feeling in his chest. He dropped his coat on the bed after his gloves. "It doesn't—it doesn't mean you have to feel the same way about me that I feel about you, okay?" It felt, just for a moment, like someone was punching him in the chest. "You don't have to be in love with me just because I'm in love with you."

There, he'd said it. He'd said it out loud and the world hadn't ended and their friendship hadn't fallen in on itself just because it was out there, in the ether. They'd get through this, he told himself, fixing on a point somewhere over Brendon's shoulder. He'd pretend everything was okay, and he'd eat his burger, and they'd talk, and it would be awkward, and then he could go back home and close the door and stop pretending that his life was going the way he wished it was. 

"It's no big deal. I'll cope." Another lie. Spencer could feel them piling up around him. 

Brendon poked at the McDonalds bag with one finger. "You know what I really liked?" It was almost like Spencer hadn't spoken. "I liked it when people thought we were a couple. I liked it when people treated us like we were together."

"They thought we were married," Spencer said. 

"I know," Brendon said, running his hand over the tabletop. "I liked that."

Spencer swallowed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Brendon said. 

"They thought we were married," Spencer said again. It shouldn't have been a surprise to Spencer that Brendon had liked that. He'd always wanted to please his family, to be—in some way—the son that his parents had so badly wanted. He'd left religion and family and tradition behind the moment he'd given up going to church and joined the band and moved out of home; all this time Spencer had known just how much Brendon had always wanted to be able to fulfill at least some of what his parents had wanted for him. He felt bad. "I'm sorry—" he started. "I didn't mean to let it get out of control. I thought I could just—" He didn't know how to get the words out. "I thought I'd be able to turn it off when we got home, and just go back to how things were. But I couldn't."

Brendon didn't look at him. He unfolded the top of the paper McDonalds bag and started pulling out the food, dividing it into two. Just like every time, Spencer had got them two cheeseburgers each, and Brendon separated them neatly, fries going on top of the burgers. Spencer hadn't bought drinks, which was kind of a stupid move now that he thought about it. His mouth was so fucking dry right now. 

"Do you want coffee?" Brendon asked, pointing to the coffee machine. "I could make us coffee." He fumbled with the little bowl by the coffee machine. "Or peach tea, they have peach tea. Do you like peach? I can't fucking remember."

"Brendon," Spencer said softly. This was killing him. "B, stop it."

"Fuck," Brendon said, his voice cracking. "Fuck, Spence, I can't—" He turned around and grabbed Spencer's sleeve, stumbling forward and pressing his mouth to Spencer's. 

Spencer, frozen in the heat of the moment, didn't move, but then Brendon made a sound like a twisted half-sob and Spencer kissed him back, helpless to do otherwise. He found himself cupping Brendon's face in his hands and kissing him again, over and over because it had been _days_ , and it felt like longer. It felt like forever. "I love you," he said, in between kisses, because he had to say it out loud again, because Brendon had to know that if he kissed Spencer again then this was what it meant to him, and that this was what they were getting themselves into. 

Brendon pushed him back into the nightstand, the bedside lamp wobbling, and Spencer tugged at Brendon's coat and hat, pulling them off and dropping them on the floor. He didn't know what had come over him, other than a sudden desperate need to be as close to Brendon as humanely possible. Brendon pushed at Spencer's hoodie, stumbling back onto the bed. He kicked off his Converse as Spencer pulled his hoodie over his head and unbuttoned his fly, awkwardly clambering out of the rest of his clothes as Brendon did the same. 

Then he was naked, and so was Brendon, and Spencer was crawling over him to press kiss after kiss to his jaw, to his throat, to the curve of his shoulder, and Brendon was so fucking hard. Brendon's hands were in the small of Spencer's back, holding him close, and all Spencer could do was rock his hips so that there was at least some friction between his dick and Brendon's. He closed the distance between them to kiss him again, bracing himself against the pillows as Brendon rolled his hips up. It felt like all of Spencer's nerve endings were on fire; he caught Brendon's lip with his teeth and Brendon whimpered into his mouth, his hips flush against Spencer's. 

Spencer kissed him again, over and over, and Brendon kissed back, breathless and stupid. There was a desperate urgency to the way they were with each other, rough and unpolished, and Spencer knew that he wasn't going to last long. He ran his hands over Brendon's skin, up the insides of his arms, pinning his hands to the pillow as he kissed him again. Brendon gasped, rocking up against him, and then Spencer let go of his wrists so that he could kiss down Brendon's chest and take Brendon's dick in his mouth, wrapping his fingers around the base and jerking him off. 

Brendon's hands tangled in Spencer's hair, holding him near, and Spencer could feel himself thinking, _this wouldn't be happening if Brendon didn't feel the same_ , but he'd let himself think that in Wales too, and that hadn't been how they'd ended up. He swallowed down any worries he might be having about where this was going, sliding his tongue over the head of Brendon's dick and feeling Brendon's groan reverberate over his skin. For once they were both quiet, saying nothing, and the only sounds were Spencer's mouth on Brendon's dick, and Brendon's heavy breathing. 

It should have been oppressive, or something, but it wasn't, it was just them, and Spencer had never missed Brendon more in his life than he had the last few days. 

"I'm gonna—" Brendon told him, pushing at Spencer's shoulder, and Spencer pulled away, letting Brendon finish himself off. Spencer wrapped his fist around his own erection and jacked off. The room was suddenly oppressively warm, and Brendon's skin was flushed and hot. Spencer kept his hand on him as he touched himself, and Brendon jerked under his touch, turned on and close. "Gonna come," he told Spencer breathlessly, his hand moving fast and loud. "Fuck, Spence."

"Me too," Spencer managed. He was closer to the edge than he'd thought, hips rocking as he fucked his hand. His dick jerked as Brendon gasped and started to come all over his stomach. He couldn't help but follow soon after, his come striping Brendon's stomach and his fist. 

He tipped his head back and tried to catch his breath before giving up and flopping down on the sheets next to Brendon.

Spencer closed his eyes. 

"I'm sorry I left like that," Brendon said after a minute. He hadn't cleaned himself up; their come was still on his stomach. Spencer couldn't tell whose was whose. "Before, when we got back. I was freaking the fuck out."

"I know," Spencer said. He shifted so that he was lying on his side, facing Brendon. "Or at least, I figured."

Brendon leaned over and stroked Spencer's hip. It felt curiously intimate to Spencer, whose heart skittered a pulse beat over his skin. "I've never felt like this about anyone before," he said finally. "And it freaks me out that I'm feeling it about you."

Spencer swallowed. "Freaks you out in a way you can deal with, or—" He didn't want to say the alternative. 

Brendon picked at the blankets with one hand, and didn't meet Spencer's eyes. "In a way that makes me wish we were married for real," he said finally. "That kind of freaked out." 

"Oh," Spencer said. "Okay."

Brendon kept stroking Spencer's hip. "It felt right, right? It wasn't just me. You and me together, it felt right."

"Yeah," Spencer said awkwardly. "It did." _Did_ , past tense. He noticed.

"And you know when we were telling people about how we got married?" Brendon went on, still not looking at Spencer. "I pretended it was real. In my head. I pretended we really had."

Spencer swallowed. "Brendon," he said. "B, look at me." 

Brendon shifted on the pillows, twisting a little to meet Spencer's eyes. Spencer reached out to stroke his thumb down Brendon's cheek slow and gentle. "I'm in love with you," he said. "I want to keep doing this. But do you?"

Brendon didn't say anything for a long, terrible moment. "I'm so scared of losing you," he said finally. "If this doesn't work out, I can't lose you."

"You won't," Spencer lied. He couldn't promise that, even though he wanted to. He'd thought he and Ryan were going to be in a band together forever, and that had run its natural course. He brushed Brendon's hair behind his ear with his thumb, relenting a little. "I don't want to lose you either," he said. He let out a breath. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you. However you want me."

"I thought you and Ryan were going to be friends forever," Brendon said. "And you let him go."

"Ryan wanted to go," Spencer said. "He didn't want to stay, and he didn't want to be in the band anymore. Making him stay would have been a seriously fucking bad idea. You know that as well as I do." He and Ryan weren't ever going to be as close as they once were, but they were still friends. They'd had their rocky patches, sure, but right now they were friends. Spencer didn't think they'd ever be able to disentangle their lives from each other's. Spencer's family was Ryan's family, after all. The only reason he wasn't with them for the holidays was that he was staying with his new girlfriend. Spencer sent him text messages whenever Ryan's team fucked up a hockey match. It worked. 

Brendon stroked his thumb over Spencer's hip, inching a little closer. "What if you thought I wanted to go? What then?"

Spencer managed half a smile. "I'd fucking follow," he said. He didn't say, _I don't know what I'd do without you_. Maybe it went without saying. He kind of hoped it did. 

Brendon swallowed. "What if you wanted to leave?"

"I'm not leaving you," Spencer said. 

Brendon's cheeks were flushed. "But—" he started.

"Not leaving you," Spencer said again. "Brendon, I'm not going anywhere." He couldn't not know any longer. He had to ask. "B, do you—do you have feelings for me?" He felt uncomfortable saying it out loud. He felt like he'd stepped out of a movie he didn't remember signing up for. His heart was beating like a drum. Brendon didn't say anything, and for a moment, Spencer wanted to shrivel up and die, right here in the motel bed. "It's okay if you don't," he said finally, even though it meant he'd just had sex with someone who didn't want him back. 

"I'm such a fuck-up," Brendon said softly. "I'm trying to get the words out, but I keep screwing up."

Spencer's heart was closing up, ice starting to form in his chest. This was a _no_. He couldn't figure out how to say it was okay. 

"I—" Brendon went on. He stopped, stumbling over his words. "I feel like I want to marry you for real," he said. "If last week was what being married was like, I want that. With you."

"You can't want to marry me," Spencer said stupidly. "We're not even dating."

"I've never wanted something permanent with anyone." Brendon's hand was tight on Spencer's arm; a part of him recognized it was probably hard enough to bruise. "I don't know what it's like to want to spend the rest of forever with someone. But I think this might be it. I think this might be what this feeling is." He bumped his chest with his fist, and met Spencer's gaze. "That's what this is," he said. "I want you forever."

"It was—we were away for a week, Brendon," Spencer found himself saying, because he was scared, because this was _real_ , because he was so deep in that if Brendon offered himself forever, for real, Spencer was going to take what he was offering and never let him go.

"I know," Brendon said. He'd loosened his grip on Spencer's wrist, his thumb stroking at Spencer's pulse point. Spencer hadn't even noticed. "Don't think I haven't told myself how stupid this is. But it's—it's like, okay. Dating is for when you don't know everything about someone, and I know you already. I know you. We can skip that step."

"But do you love me?" Spencer asked. He couldn't help himself; he had to know. Brendon still hadn't said it. 

"Oh, fuck," Brendon managed. His voice caught. "Yes," he said, his fingertips trembling a touch to the inside of Spencer's wrist. "I'm so in love with you."

"Shit," Spencer said, licking his lips. Then Brendon's mouth was on his, and Spencer was being kissed, and he was kissing back, and he had an armful of Brendon and nowhere in the world he'd rather be. He loved him. _He loved him_. Spencer hadn't been aware of how scared he'd been that this was going to fuck them up until right now. This whole time, all he'd been able to think about was _what if we don't get to come back from this_. _What if I've fucked us up for good_? He hadn't ever thought about this moment, the _what happens next_ moment. The _it's working out_ moment. 

He ran his fingers over Brendon's skin, touching him over and over, his hands everywhere. This was _his_ , he thought, half in wonder. It felt like he was floating somewhere, and the only thing tethering him to the ground was Brendon. He kissed him again, his hands in Brendon's hair, and Brendon cupped Spencer's face in his hands, kissing him back. 

They napped after a while, sprawled across the bed with the heat up high. Spencer's skin was hot and sticky, and Brendon lay half on top of him, arm pinning Spencer to the bed. It was half-uncomfortable, half-perfect, and Spencer couldn't bring himself to move. He dozed again instead, too many days of not enough sleep finally catching up with him. 

They were woken by Spencer's phone ringing. A part of him wanted to ignore it, wanted to stay in bed with Brendon, but it was the day before Christmas, and the two of them had vanished without a trace. 

He unpeeled himself from Brendon and stumbled naked across the room, trying to find his phone in the pocket of his jeans. It was Jackie. 

"Hi," he said, rubbing his eyes to wake himself up. 

"Please don't tell me if you're naked," Jackie said, without even saying _hello_. In the background, Spencer could hear Crys saying _ewwww_. He grinned, unable to help himself. He glanced back at the bed, to where Brendon was lying on his back in the center of the bed, half-hard and heavy-lidded, watching him. 

"Wouldn't dream of it," Spencer said, a smile curving across his face as he met Brendon's wide, sleepy-eyed grin with his own. 

"Oh god, you probably are," Jackie said. "Way to go, bro. Are you two, like, dating now?"

"Something like that," Spencer said, too happy to focus on the fact his sister thought he was naked. Brendon was just laughing, sitting up on his elbows and watching Spencer on the phone, and Spencer just wanted to laugh back. 

"Well, it's totally awesome that you're scarring both me and Crys forever with the fact that you're probably having sex with Brendon right now, but are you coming back for dinner? Dad's asking. He's making swans out of the napkins again."

Spencer snorted. "Oh fuck, is he?" Their dad had had a part time job at a restaurant when he'd been at college. The hand-folded napkin swans made an outing at every family dinner. 

"Of course," Jack said. "Are you coming back, or what? Where are you?"

"At a motel," Spencer said, feeling himself going red at Jackie's snort. Brendon was grinning at him, chin tilted up, and Spencer thought, _I'm in love with you_. 

"I was kidding about the naked thing, but you really are, aren't you? We really are scarred."

"Fully clothed and totally PG rated," Spencer lied. He crossed over to the bed, and wrapped his hand around Brendon's ankle. Brendon pressed his toes into Spencer's thigh, and Spencer bit his lip to keep him from smiling too hard.

"I'm probably not going to tell Mom and Dad you're renting a motel by the hour to have sex with your boyfriend, but am I going to tell them you're coming back for dinner?"

"Is there enough for Brendon?" Spencer asked. Brendon grinned at him, and waggled his eyebrows. All of this suddenly felt very real, and Spencer wanted to ground that in something tangible. Like dinner with his parents. 

"Probably," Jackie said. "Hang on, talk to Crys, I'll go ask Mom."

"Spencer," Crystal said, taking the phone. "Have you been holding out on me? What's this about you and Brendon?"

"We're kind of dating," Spencer admitted, pink-cheeked. It was the first time he'd gotten to say it out loud and have it not be based in some kind of a lie. 

Brendon held his hand out for the phone, and Spencer rolled his eyes. "Hang on, Brendon wants to—" Brendon grabbed the phone. 

"I want to marry him," Brendon said, without stopping to say hi. "That's okay, right?" 

Spencer could hear Crystal's high-pitched squeak even without holding the phone. He wasn't sure how much of what Brendon was saying about getting married was hyperbole, and how much was real, but it didn't matter. Wales had still felt like a honeymoon. He dropped a kiss to Brendon's bare shoulder and reached for the phone again. 

"How long until dinner?" he asked. 

"Jackie says thirty minutes. And bring Brendon." 

"We'll be there," Spencer said, hanging up at the same time as pushing Brendon back onto the sheets so that he could kiss him again. Part of him wanted to check that he'd actually hung up on his sisters properly, but Brendon was keeping too tight a hold of him for him to try and pull away. He didn't care that much anyway, because Brendon was kissing him again, and Spencer was kissing him back. 

—

"Are you okay with this?" Spencer asked as they pulled up outside Spencer's house in Brendon's car. 

Brendon turned the engine off, and slid his hand over Spencer's. "You know what's weird?" he said. "I don't remember feeling this happy. Like, ever. It feels like everything's slotted into place."

"We've been together five minutes, and we're already telling my parents." Spencer felt like that should feel weird, at least. It didn't. It felt strangely like they'd been together a whole lot longer than they had been. 

Brendon shrugged. "Do you get the feeling we're doing this whole thing backwards? We had the honeymoon before we'd even had sex."

Spencer snorted. "We're like an instruction manual for how not to get together, I think."

"I don't know," Brendon said. "We ended up together." He checked his phone. "Mom says, do we want to come over this evening and hang out?" He looked at Spencer for an answer, yes or no.

"Are we telling them?" 

Brendon made a face. "In a couple of days, maybe. After tomorrow. I think they'll be okay with it." He shrugged. "If they're not, they'll get used to the idea."

Spencer nodded. "Okay." He undid his seatbelt and cracked open the door. "Before, when you were talking about us getting married..." 

Brendon smiled softly. "I was serious," he said. "I want to marry you. If you'll have me."

Spencer wanted to say yes more than anything, but even he couldn't get past the fact they'd only been together a couple of weeks, and formally even less. "Let's date for a while, first," he said. "Then you can figure out if you still want me in three months."

"I already know all your crappy habits," Brendon persisted. "I know you inside and out."

"I know," Spencer said. "And I know you right back. Just—I'm saying yes, okay. I'm saying yes. Ask me again in three months, and I'll say yes."

Brendon leaned over and kissed the corner of Spencer's mouth. "Ask me anytime," he said. "I'll say yes."

"Come on," Spencer said. "Let's go in and tell Mom and Dad."

—

"Oh," Spencer's mom said, when she saw Brendon and Spencer in the doorway to the dining room, holding hands. Spencer held on to Brendon's hand a little tighter. She glanced at Spencer's face, and then back down at their hands. "Are you—is this?"

Spencer nodded. "Yes," he said, feeling himself flush. "Me and Brendon."

"Oh," Spencer's mom said again. She put the dish of lasagna down on the table carefully, and then folded up the oven mitts into two and put them down next to the food. Spencer's heart was beating like a kickdrum, and Brendon's hand was sweaty and hot in his. "Well." A smile curved across her face, and she clapped her hands. "This is _excellent_ news," she said. "Jeff! Jeff. Come see, Spencer's brought a boy home for dinner."

"Mom," Spencer hissed, red faced. He turned to face Brendon to apologize. "Oh god. Sorry."

Brendon was biting his lip. Spencer thought it might be to keep from laughing. There was a strange sensation in his chest, like something inside of him had split open and was just pulsing happiness through him, like a drug. He'd _had_ drugs that made him feel like this, but the reality was something different. Most legal fucking high he'd ever had.

"Are you a couple now?" she asked. "How long's this been going on? Are you in love? This is amazing." She smacked Spencer in the arm. "You should have told us earlier, we would have gotten Brendon a better Christmas present."

"Oh god," Spencer said again. "Mom, that hurt."

"What's this?" Spencer's dad said, coming into the dining room with a dishcloth in his hand. Jackie and Crystal were giggling behind him. This was the very worst thing that had ever happened to Spencer. Only the fact that it meant that he and Brendon were together made it bearable. Jeff looked at Brendon and Spencer's joined hands, and then at Spencer. "Well, well," he said. "Is this new?"

"Um," Spencer said. "Kind of? Since, uh. Wales. But with a break."

"Hmmm," Jeff said. "Is it, um. You're not worried about the band?"

Brendon shook his head, shooting a glance at Spencer. He seemed strangely shy all of a sudden. "No," he said. "I think we'll be okay."

"But the two of you are happy?" 

"Look at them, Dad," Jackie said, giving Spencer a wink. "Do they look like they're unhappy?"

"Okay, okay. I was just asking. It's their livelihoods, that's all—"

"Jeff," Spencer's mom scolded. "Stop talking and sit down. When was the last time Spencer brought someone home and looked this happy? Shut up. You too, girls. Brendon, Spencer, sit down."

Spencer, without thinking, pulled out a chair so that Brendon could sit down. He only noticed what he'd done when Crystal and Jackie burst out laughing, and his mom and dad joined in. 

"Oh god," he said, burying his face in his hands as he sat down in his own chair. "Kill me now."

Brendon reached over and patted his knee. "There, there," he said. "I thought it was very romantic."

Spencer burned an even brighter red. "This is going to be the worst thing I've ever done, isn't it."

"Yep," Brendon said, and he leaned over and kissed Spencer on the cheek, ignoring everyone else's laughter. "The very worst."

"Good," Spencer said and squeezed Brendon's hand.


	18. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three months later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to hermette for the beta. <3

"It's March twenty-fourth, motherfucker," Brendon sang as he let himself into their house. "March twenty-fourth, March twenty-fourth." He dumped two pizza boxes on the coffee table.

Spencer was instant-messaging Gareth on his laptop from the couch. "Gareth says hi," he said, as Brendon leaned over the back of the couch to kiss Spencer on the corner of his mouth. Spencer reached up to slide his hand into Brendon's hair, keeping him near. "He says he's learned a new chord."

"Awesome," Brendon said, grinning, leaning in to kiss Spencer hello again. "How many's that, now?" 

"Six," Spencer said. "He can pretty much take over the world with six chords."

"Tell him that," Brendon said. "And then tell him that I love him, but I'm making you put the laptop down so we can go and have sex and eat pizza. In that order."

Spencer grinned and obediently typed the message into the window. 

Gareth typed **lollollol** back, and then, **hi, B. Bye, B. Have good sex. Griff says hi.**

Brendon snorted and pushed down the lid of the laptop. "Come on," he said. "Upstairs. I want to blow you."

"Hmmmm," Spencer said, pretending to think about it. "I've lined up Mythbusters on Netflix."

"Upstairs," Brendon said, rolling his eyes. "Why am I with you, I don't even know."

"Because you love me," Spencer told him, letting himself be pushed upstairs. "You love me, and you want to blow me—"

"Yeah, yeah," Brendon said. He wrapped an arm around Spencer's waist, stumbling them both into the bedroom. He stopped in the doorway, eyes going wide. "Holy shit, Spencer."

Spencer shrugged awkwardly. "It's March twenty-fourth. Three months."

In the middle of the bed was a ring box, a picture of the two of them in Wales, and a note that just said _marry me for real this time_ in black sharpie. 

Brendon's breath hitched and he wrapped his arms around Spencer's shoulders, burying his face in Spencer's neck. Spencer let out a breath and hugged back. It had been three months, and it hadn't always been easy, and it hadn't all been good days, but it was still by far the best relationship that Spencer had ever had. He loved Brendon, and it still felt like it had back in Wales. Like they were married already. That they were doing this backwards. That choosing to get married after three months wasn't too soon, it was way too late. 

They'd already had the honeymoon, after all. 

"Well?" Spencer said, after a moment. He was pretty sure he couldn't bear not knowing any longer. "Marry me?"

"Motherfucker," Brendon said, without pulling away. "I was going to ask you."

Spencer snorted, and tilted Brendon's chin up, leaning in to press a kiss to Brendon's open mouth. "So," he said. "You have any idea where you want to go for our honeymoon?"

**End.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally done! This is the first time in a lot of years that I've posted something as a partwork, and I'm sorry it's taken so long to complete. Writer's block! This was not the time to show up. 
> 
> But thanks to octette for her help with the earlier chapters, and hermette for all her cheerleading and beta skills in the later chapters. <3 It has been invaluable and much appreciated. <333

**Author's Note:**

> Accompanying mix available [here](http://sunsetmog.livejournal.com/586488.html).


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